Williamson v. Waldman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 district · 40 state decisions

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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Four days after being pricked by the lancet, plaintiff sought medical advice from Dr. DeMasi. Unfortunately, Dr. DeMasi misinformed plaintiff that she needed to be tested for HIV annually for seven to ten years. Although Dr. De-Masi subsequently modified the period for continued testing to a "year or two," plaintiff was not informed of that until three years after the incident. The erroneous medical advice, therefore, prolonged plaintiff's reasonable fear of AIDS beyond the acceptable six-month to one-year period. We therefore must determine whether that "additional" emotional distress should be attributed to the original defendants or whether the erroneous medical advice constituted an intervening cause that was not reasonably foreseeable at the time of the original negligence. Essentially, we must determine the extent to which the bad advice can be recognized as a part of the original defendants' duty of care, the breach of which constituted, as a matter of law, a proximate cause of plaintiff's continuing emotional distress.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 360 N.J. Super. 492 - Doe v. Arts

2. “The circumstances in this case [ ] militate against holding the initial tortfeasors liable for the consequences of the subsequent incorrect medical advice given to plaintiff. Our adoption of the enhanced reasonableness standard in respect of causation is based in large part on the policy consideration that ignorance concerning HIV and AIDS ought to be discouraged to the greatest extent possible through the tort law....That determination is inconsistent with the imputation to the original tortfeasors of the foreseeability that the emotional distress of a claimant fearing she had contracted AIDS could be prolonged and exacerbated by incorrect information from a medical professional .... To recognize such foreseeability as a basis for defining the duty of care and proximate cause would itself encourage medical ignorance and confusion surrounding the AIDS epidemic. [ Williamson, supra, 150 N.J. at 252-53 , 696 A. 2d 14 (emphasis added).]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 360 N.J. Super. 492 - Doe v. Arts

3. “The information allegedly provided by Dr. DeMasi—that plaintiff needed to be tested for the presence of HIV for seven to ten years—was beyond the pale of generally accepted medical evidence regarding the effectiveness of HIV testing and ought not, as a matter of law, be deemed to be reasonably foreseeable by other health-care professionals. Thus, the emotional distress attributable to Dr. DeMasi's bad advice was not the kind of foreseeable risk that serves to define both the duty of care and legal proximate cause that should be attributed to the conduct of the original defendants. Consequently, plaintiff's damages based on the emotional distress arising from her fear of contracting AIDS, proximately caused by the defendants' negligence as determined by the standard of enhanced reasonableness, does not include that emotional distress that was attributable to DeMasi.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 360 N.J. Super. 492 - Doe v. Arts