Toney v. WCCO Television, Midwest Cable & Satellite, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
85 F.3d 383 · 1996
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 4 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently September 2021 · most notably Huckabee v. Time Warner Entertainment Co. (2000), Mercer v. City of Cedar Rapids (2002)
17 federal appellate · 4 district · 11 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. · Mahan & Rowsey, Inc. v. Oklahoma Natural Gas · Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. · Bourjaily v. United States
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If a speaker says, “In my opinion John Jones is a liar,” he implies a knowledge of facts which lead to the conclusion that Jones told an untruth. Even if the speaker states the facts upon which he bases his opinion, if those facts are either incorrect or incomplete, or if his assessment of them is erroneous, the statement may still imply a false assertion of fact. Simply couching such statements in terms of opinion does not dispel these implications; and the statement, “In my opinion Jones is a liar,” can cause as much damage to reputation as the statement, “Jones is a liar.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Milkovich made clear that implications, like plain statements, may give rise to a defamation claim. Indeed, Milkovich ultimately held that `a reasonable fact finder could conclude that the statements [at issue] imply an assertion that petitioner Milkovich perjured himself ... [and that] th [is] connotation is sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Mohr v. Grant“[The Tennessee Supreme Court] held liable a newspaper that truthfully reported that a woman, upon finding her husband at plaintiff’s home, shot the plaintiff. In that case, the article neglected to mention that the plaintiff was hosting a social gathering at the time, thereby implying that the plaintiff and the suspect’s husband were having an affair.”
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.