McCabe v. Rattiner’s Empirical Analysis
814 F.2d 839 · 1987
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 9 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Fudge v. Penthouse International, Ltd. (1988), Kassel v. Gannett Co. (1989)
17 federal appellate · 9 district · 8 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 Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · Hamling v. United States · Old Dominion Branch No. 496 v. Austin · Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Assn., Inc. v. Bresler · Finch v. Connor
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he lack of precision makes the assertion 'X is a scam' incapable of being proven true of false”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea,”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Rattiner extensively and accurately described his encounter with the resort salespeople, thereby disclosing the basis for his assertion that it was a scam. Readers may have disagreed with the conclusion that it was a scam, but they could not have said' that the conclusion was false, because - there is no core meaning of scam to which Rattiner’s facts and allegations can-be compared. Is it a scam to promise a lobster dinner and then only give it after protest? Is it a scam to gross approximately $9 million from a 25 unit resort? The answer depends on the meaning given to the word “scam.” . '”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.