Bettner v. Holt’s Empirical Analysis
1886
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently June 2012 · most notably 1 Cal. 3d 20 - Kapellas v. Kofman (1969), 52 Cal. 2d 536 - MacLeod v. Tribune Publishing Co. (1959)
3 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Spencer v. Southwick
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In the interpretation to be placed upon language charging the publication of a libel, a court of justice is to put such construction upon the words which it contains as may be derived ‘as well from the expressions used as from the whole scope and apparent object of the writer.’ (Spencer v. Southwick, 10 Johns. (N. Y.) 259; Cooper v. Greely, 1 Denio (N. Y.), 358.) “And not only is the language employed to be regarded with reference to the actual words used, but according to the sense and meaning under all the circumstances attending the publication which such language may fairly be presumed to have conveyed to those to whom it was published. So that in such cases the language is uniformly to be regarded with what has been its effect, actual or presumed, and its sense is to be arrived at with the help of the cause and occasion of its publication. “And in passing upon the sufficiency of such language as stating a cause of action, a court is to place itself in the situation of the hearer or reader, and determine the sense or meaning of the language of a complaint for libelous publication according to its natural and popular construction. (Townshend on Libel and Slander, sec. 133.)” “It is not required that the facts be set forth with all the technicality or precision of an indictment, if the crime be imputed in the ordinary language usually employed to denote it in lay conversation.” (Jarman v. Rea, supra, at p. 345 of 137 Cal.; see, also, Schomberg v. Walker, supra; Carl v. McD”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.