Colbert v. World Publishing Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently November 2021
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 12 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 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · St. Amant v. Thompson · Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts · Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“One who gives publicity to a matter concerning another that places the other before the public in a false light is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if (a) the false light in which the other was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) the actor had knowledge or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“had a high degree of awareness of probable falsity or in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the publication.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[The right of action for false light invasion of privacy is a product of the same societal need as the tort of outrage or intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
2 later decisions 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.