Wall v. Brim’s Empirical Analysis
138 F.2d 478 · 1943
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 1 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently February 2012 · most notably Canterbury v. Spence (1972), Di Filippo v. Preston (1961)
18 federal appellate · 1 district · 12 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Ewing v. Goode · Mohr v. Williams · State v. Housekeeper · Pratt v. Davis · Rush v. Atlanta Railway & Power Co.
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"* * * The law is well settled that an operation cannot be performed without the patient's consent and that one performed without consent, express or implied, is a technical battery or trespass for which the operator is liable. The obligation underlying this rule is not satisfied by a consent obtained under a mistaken diagnosis that the operation is simple and without danger, when a later diagnosis, while the patient is still conscious and no emergency exists, discloses that the operation is both difficult and dangerous. The rule extends no further than to hold that if a physician advises his patient to submit to a particular operation and the patient weighs the dangers and results incident to its performance and finally consents, he thereby in effect enters into a contract authorizing his physician to operate to the extent of the consent given but no further. The same principle which supports the holding that a surgeon performing an operation without his patient's consent, express or implied, commits a battery or trespass for which he is liable in damages, also supports the holding that a surgeon may not perform an operation different in kind from that consented to or one involving risks and results not contemplated."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“neither establishes, nor supports an inference of want of proper care, skill or diligence.”
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.