Babb v. Minder’s Empirical Analysis
806 F.2d 749 · 1986
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently February 2012 · most notably DeLaurentis v. City of New Haven (1991), Haynes v. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (1993)
17 federal appellate · 1 district · 5 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 · Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. · Engle v. Isaac
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[o]nce the court decides that a qualified privilege exists, the plaintiff has the burden of showing that the defendant abused and lost the privilege by acting with actual or express malice.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The evidence adduced at trial indicates that Minder acted with reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the defamatory statements and thus supports the jury finding of actual malice.... Minder acted on an unconfirmed rumor about the “mooning” incident conveyed to him off-handedly in one telephone conversation. ... Once informed of the “mooning” rumor, Minder did not contact plaintiff nor the employee who supposedly witnessed the incident. Minder did not receive any written statement before Babb was fired_ In effect, Minder made no investigation at all despite the seriousness of the allegations and their great potential for harm_ Minder acted recklessly in not looking into the situation further before defaming Babb.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“'We therefore hold that a written or oral statement is to be considered in context, with the words and the implications therefrom given their natural and obvious meaning; if, as so construed, the statement may reasonably be innocently interpreted or reasonably be interpreted as referring to someone other than the plaintiff it cannot be actionable per se.'”
1 later decision 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.