Harpham v. Whitney’s Empirical Analysis
1875
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 65 later decisions — most recently July 2021 · most notably 33 Ill. 2d 291 - Freides v. Sani-Mode Manufacturing Co. (1965), 315 Ill. App. 3d 340 - Rodgers v. Peoples Gas Light & Coke Co. (2000)
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 57 state decisions — followed in 12 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.
Relationships
Relies on Jacks v. Stimpson · Murray v. Long · McGurn v. Brackett
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 65 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““To maintain an action for malicious prosecution, it must appear that there was not probable cause for the prosecution, and also that the defendants were actuated by malice in instituting the prosecution. There must be both want of probable cause and malice. If the law imputed malice from want of probable cause, then there would be no distinct requirement of malice, but want of probable cause would be the sole element necessary. It is often said, the jury may infer malice from the want of probable cause. They may do so under certain circumstances, but not in all cases. Malice is in no case a legal presumption from the want of probable cause, it being for the jury to find from the facts proved, where there was no probable cause, whether there was malice or not. 1 Hilliard on Torts, 486. And if the defendant can not justify by proof of probable cause, he may still rebut the presumption of malice by showing facts and circumstances calculated to produce at the time, on the mind of a prudent and reasonable man, a well-grounded belief or suspicion of the party’s guilt.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““We regard this instruction as erroneous. There is no such doctrine of the law so in discouragement of its own enforcement, that one can so act, as in the instruction named, only upon personal knowledge, and not upon information. . . . All that is required is-an honest belief, or strong ground of suspicion, of the plaintiff’s guilt, and a reasonable ground of the belief or suspicion; and that may be upon information from others, as well as personal knowledge. Murray v. Long, 1 Wend. 140 ; Bacon v. Towne et al. 4 Cush. 217 ; Foshay v. Ferguson, 2 Denio. 617.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Shelton v. Barry
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.