23 Ill. 2d 326 - Zostautas v. St. Anthony De Padua Hospital’s Empirical Analysis
1961
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently May 2013 · most notably Jackson v. Bumgardner (1986), 102 Ill. 2d 505 - Bullard v. Barnes (1984)
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 39 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 Van Beeck v. Sabine Towing Co. · Kilberg v. Northeast Airlines, Inc. · 22 Ill. 2d 73 - Knierim v. Izzo · Insurance Company v. Brame · 13 Ill. 2d 26 - Hall v. Gillins
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.
“. . . The tenuousness of such a distinction is apparent in these `malpractice' cases where the identical conduct of the physician may give rise to either action. Invoking such a distinction would only pay homage to the ancient `forms of action' and perpetuate formalities of pleading which our Civil Practice Act endeavored to abolish.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“. . . The tenuousness of such a distinction is apparent in these `malpractice' cases where the identical conduct of the physician may give rise to either action. Invoking such a distinction would only pay homage to the ancient `forms of action' and perpetuate formalities of pleading which our Civil Practice Act endeavored to abolish. "In our judgment the more tenable rule, and that supported by judicial authority . . . is that a breach of a physician's contract resulting in the death of the patient may constitute a `default' within the terms of our Wrongful Death Act. . . . ". . . "`Death statutes have their roots in dissatisfaction with the archaisms of the law . . . . It would be a misfortune if a narrow or grudging process of construction were to exemplify and perpetuate the very evils to be remedied.' "We would be giving our Wrongful Death Act a grudging construction if we would leave remediless cases where death ensues from a physician's breach of contract, and, but for such death, the patient would have had a valid contract action against the physician. Thus, the interpretation evolved herein not only avoids creating inequitable and inconsistent refinements in the common law, but would effectuate the purport and be within the terms of our Wrongful Death Act.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The two causes of action are dissimilar as to theory, proof and damages recoverable. Malpractice is predicated upon the failure to exercise requisite medical skill and is tortious in nature. The action in contract is based upon a failure to perform a special agreement. Negligence, the basis of the one, is foreign to the other. The damages recoverable in malpractice are for personal injuries, including the pain and suffering which naturally flow from the tortious act. In the contract action they are restricted to the payments made and to the expenditures for nurses and medicines or other damages that flow from the breach thereof.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Dingle v. Belin
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.