Bennett v. Salisbury’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district ·

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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It has become the course of business of newspapers of this class [the New York Herald] to receive announcements of this character from news bureaus and from numerous special correspondents who are scattered over the country, and it has become the custom of some daily .journals to rely upon the good faith and accuracy of these correspondents and to publish in substance whatever they sent over their own, signatures without further investigation into ■¡is truthfulness, and in an action for libel, when the falsehood of the publication was manifest, to attempt to ward off the charge of recklessness by saying that the information was received and was published in the usual course of business. Neither judges nor juries have been satisfied with the sufficiency of this kind of care. It is so insufficient as to be justly regarded as an absence of care, and as recklessness with respect to the rights and reputations of strangers to the publisher. The excuse was itself regarded as indicative of a careless indifference to and ignorance of the obligations of an owner to use his property so as not to injure others.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morning Union Co. v. Butler