Rudeck v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently October 2022 · most notably Busta Ex Rel. Busta v. Columbus Hospital Corp. (1996), 178 W. Va. 164 - Conaway v. Eastern Associated Coal Corp. (1987)
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 42 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 Graham v. Whitaker · 456 So. 2d 650 - Morgan v. Willis-Knighton Medical Center · 332 Pa. Super. 185 - Capone v. Donovan · Swanson v. Champion International Corp. · McCullough v. Bethany Medical Center
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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]f two or more causes concur to bring about an event, and any one of them, operating alone, would have been sufficient to cause the identical result, some other test is needed. In such cases it is quite clear that each cause has in fact played so important a part in producing the result that responsibility should be imposed upon it; and it is equally clear that neither can be absolved from that responsibility upon the ground that the identical harm would have occurred without it, or there would be no liability at all. The "substantial factor" rule was developed primarily for cases in which application of the "but for" rule would allow each defendant to escape responsibility because the conduct of one or more others would have been sufficient to produce the same result ...”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The general rule, as stated in 70 C.J.S. Physicians and Surgeons § 48, p. 969, is that a surgeon's failure to remove a sponge or pad before closing an incision may be regarded as negligence per se, and some authorities hold that the surgeon cannot relieve himself from liability for injury to a patient caused by leaving sponges or pads by reliance on a custom or rule requiring the attending nurse to count sponges or pads used and removed, and on the nurse's statement as to the count. Albeit there is authority to the contrary, we are convinced that the general rule is sound. While the nurses of Touro were unquestionably negligent in making an incorrect count of the sponges withdrawn from Mrs. Grant's body, which was the proximate cause of the accident, we hold that Dr. Golden was guilty of concurrent fault in failing to notice that one of the holders he withdrew from Mrs. Grant's body did not have a sponge attached.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“If Mr. Rudeck's death was caused by the negligence of defendant Wright, then the earlier injury to Mr. Rudeck which culminated in his death must have been caused by the same negligence. If the same negligence ... caused the personal injury to the living Mr. Rudeck and that same negligence caused his later death, the jury would be compelled to award damages for Mr. Rudeck's personal injury (which were sought in the survival claim on his behalf by the personal representative of his estate) as well as awarding damages on the wrongful death claim. Because the jury did not do so, its verdict is inconsistent and is against the law.”
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.