Fresh v. Cutter’s Empirical Analysis
1890
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 16 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 77 later decisions — most recently March 2007 · most notably Erickson v. Marsh & McLennan Co. (1990), Jacron Sales Co. v. Sindorf (1976)
5 federal appellate · 16 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 11 states
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.
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 77 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““But the plaintiff has the right notwithstanding the privileged character of the communication to go to the jury, if there be evidence tending to show actual malice, as when the words unreasonably impute crime, or the occasion of their utterance is such as to indicate, by its unnecessary publicity or otherwise, a purpose wrongfully to defame the plaintiff. . . . Or, malice may be established by showing that the publication contained matter not relevant to the occasion. . . . Expressions in excess of what the occasion warrants do not per se take away the privilege, but such excess may be evidence of malice . . .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.