Alcon v. Spicer’s Empirical Analysis
2005
Citation profile
2 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably People v. Gutierrez (2009), Desclos v. Southern New Hampshire Medical Center (2006)
2 district · 23 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
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 6103
Relies on Cypress Media, Inc. v. City of Overland Park · Clark v. District Court, Second Judicial District, City & County of Denver · Bond v. District Court In & For the County of Denver · R.K. v. Ramirez · Pina v. Espinoza
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(d) A physician, surgeon, or registered professional nurse duly authorized to practice his or her profession pursuant to the laws of this state or any other state shall not be examined without the consent of his or her patient as to any information acquired in attending the patient that was necessary to enable him or her to prescribe or act for the patient, [subject to exceptions not applicable here].”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[IJmplied waivers have always been limited by the circumstances of the case, rather than amounting to consent to general disclosure of all the patient's communications with his or her physician.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Zapata v. People · People v. Brown“[The privilege can also be viewed as recognizing the inherent importance of privacy in the physician-patient relationship by protecting the confidences once made.”
3 later decisions 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.