21 Tenn. App. 283 - Meadows v. Patterson’s Empirical Analysis
1937
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently October 2016 · most notably Voss Ex Rel. Voss v. Bridwell (1961), Parrish v. Spink (1969)
6 federal appellate · 30 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.
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““. . . However, where, as in this case, the liability of the physician or surgeon is predicated upon alleged negligence for want of reasonable care of the patient while unconscious and not upon an alleged want of skill in diagnosis or treatment, we think a practical administration of justice dictates the application of the doctrine when it appears that a sound and unaffected member of the body is injured or destroyed while the patient is unconscious and under the immediate and exclusive control of the physician. In no other way, under usual and ordinary conditions could the patient obtain redress for such an injury, and it is no hardship upon the defendant to explain, as he alone can, how the injury occurred. If innocent of any wrong, the door of escape is left open. The distinction between such a case and the ordinary malpractice case is recognized and upheld in the case of Vonault v. O’Rourke, 97 Mont., 92 , 33 P. (2d), 535 , where other holdings of like import are cited and discussed.” (pp. 286, 287.)”
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.