We can now use our citation list to find the most-citing and most-cited cases. To accomplish this, we use the function table(). This function provides us with frequencies of the values in our dataframe. We also sort our dataframe to make it easier to identify the most cited or citing case.
We start with the most-citing of our 25 cases.
# Based on our citation list, we can find the most citing and most cited cases in our list.
most_citing <- as.data.frame(sort((table(all_citations$case_name)), decreasing = TRUE))
most_citing
##
Var1 Freq
1 [2013] 1 S.C.R. 61 53
2 [2013] 1 S.C.R. 623 42
3 [2015] 1 S.C.R. 3 37
4 [2015] 2 S.C.R. 398 35
5 [2013] 1 S.C.R. 467 31
6 [2015] 3 S.C.R. 511 31
7 [2013] 3 S.C.R. 1101 27
8 [2015] 1 S.C.R. 613 24
9 [2014] 2 S.C.R. 167 23
10 [2016] 1 S.C.R. 130 23
11 [2015] 3 S.C.R. 1089 22
12 [2016] 1 S.C.R. 99 20
13 [2013] 2 S.C.R. 227 19
14 [2015] 1 S.C.R. 161 17
15 [2014] 2 S.C.R. 256 15
16 [2014] 1 SCR 704 12
17 [2016] 1 S.C.R. 180 11
18 [2017] 1 S.C.R. 1069 11
19 [2016] 2 S.C.R. 720 10
20 [2014] 2 S.C.R. 447 9
21 [2015] 2 S.C.R. 548 9
22 [2017] 1 S.C.R. 1099 9
23 [2013] 3 S.C.R. 1053 6
24 [2014] 1 S.C.R. 575 5
25 [2016] 2 S.C.R. 3 3
Hence, the most citing case in our network is Quebec (Attorney General) v. A, 2013 SCC 5, [2013] 1 S.C.R. 61.
We can do the same thing with the most-cited cases. This list will be considerably longer, so we restrict ourselves to the 50 most cited cases.
most_cited <- as.data.frame(sort((table(all_citations$citations)), decreasing = TRUE))
most_cited[1:50]
##
Var1 Freq
1 [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295 8
2 [2004] 3 S.C.R. 511 8
3 [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103 6
4 [2009] 2 S.C.R. 567 5
5 [1995] 3 S.C.R. 199 5
6 [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075 5
7 [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010 5
8 [2008] 2 S.C.R. 483 4
9 [1996] 2 S.C.R. 507 4
10 [2005] 3 S.C.R. 388 4
11 [2010] 3 S.C.R. 103 4
12 [2013] 1 S.C.R. 623 4
13 [1998] 1 S.C.R. 27 4
14 [2013] 3 S.C.R. 1101 4
15 [2012] 1 S.C.R. 433 4
16 [2014] 2 S.C.R. 257 4
17 [1986] 2 S.C.R. 713 3
18 [2011] 1 S.C.R. 396 3
19 [2012] 3 S.C.R. 555 3
20 [1999] 2 S.C.R. 203 3
21 [2000] 2 S.C.R. 307 3
22 [2005] 3 S.C.R. 458 3
23 [2013] 1 S.C.R. 61 3
24 [1984] 2 S.C.R. 335 3
25 [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 3
26 [2002] 2 S.C.R. 235 3
27 [2003] 2 S.C.R. 236 3
28 [2004] 3 S.C.R. 550 3
29 [2003] 3 S.C.R. 571 3
30 [2010] 1 S.C.R. 44 3
31 [2011] 3 S.C.R. 134 3
32 [1984] 2 S.C.R. 145 3
33 [1999] 1 S.C.R. 688 3
34 [2010] 2 S.C.R. 650 3
35 [2004] 3 S.C.R. 698 3
36 [1989] 1 S.C.R. 927 2
37 [1990] 3 S.C.R. 697 2
38 [1995] 2 S.C.R. 513 2
39 [1996] 1 S.C.R. 825 2
40 [2004] 2 S.C.R. 551 2
41 [2006] 1 S.C.R. 256 2
42 [2007] 2 S.C.R. 610 2
43 [2008] 1 S.C.R. 190 2
44 [2011] 1 S.C.R. 160 2
45 [2011] 3 S.C.R. 471 2
46 [2011] 3 S.C.R. 654 2
47 [2013] 1 S.C.R. 467 2
48 [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30 2
49 [1989] 1 S.C.R. 1296 2
50 [1989] 1 S.C.R. 143 2
Hence, the most cited case in our network is R v Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295 and Haida Nation v British Columbia, [2004] 3 S.C.R. 511. The former is landmark Charter case and the latter is a leading case on the Crown’s duty to consult Aboriginal groups.
Since we worked with a small sample of 25 decisions for this analysis, we should not make too much of these findings. If a similar analysis were applied to all Canadian Supreme Court cases, we would fine meaningful patterns about what cases are the most-cited and most-citing.
access_time Last update May 11, 2020.