RASMUSSEN BY MITCHELL v. Fleming’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently January 2010
5 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 Bell v. Wolfish · Roe v. Wade · Griswold v. State of Connecticut · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Youngberg v. Romeo Ex Rel. Romeo
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Even if death is not imminent but a patient’s coma is beyond doubt irreversible and there are adequate safeguards to confirm the accuracy of the diagnosis and with the concurrence of those who have responsibility for the care of the patient, it is not unethical to discontinue all means of life-prolonging medical treatment. “Life-prolonging medical treatment includes medication and artificially or technologically supplied respiration, nutrition or hydration. In treating a terminally ill or irreversibly comatose patient, the physician should determine whether the benefits of treatment outweigh its burdens. At all times, the dignity of the patient should be maintained.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Prevention of suicide is ... an inapplicable consideration.... `A death which occurs after the removal of life sustaining systems is from natural causes, neither set in motion nor intended by the patient.' Welfare of Colyer, [ 99 Wash.2d 114, 123 (1983)].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.