Castrol Inc. v. Pennzoil Co.’s Empirical Analysis
987 F.2d 939 · 1993
Citation profile
48 federal appellate · 33 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 179 later decisions — most recently August 2022 · most notably Mylan Laboratories, Inc. v. Matkari (1993), Lipton v. Nature Co. (1995)
48 federal appellate · 33 district · 7 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 Anderson v. City of Bessemer City · Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. · Bates v. State Bar of Arizona · Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan · Pledger v. Medlock
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 179 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] person who shall ... use in connection with any goods or services ... any false description or representation, including words or other symbols tending falsely to describe or represent the same ... shall be liable in a civil action by any person ... who believes that he is or is likely to be damaged by the use of such false description or representation.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“there need not be a direct comparison to a competitor for a statement to be actionable under the Lanham Act.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or'device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact which ... (B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.