Endresz v. Friedberg’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district · 85 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 97 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[S]ince the mother may sue for any injury which she sustained in her own person, including her suffering as a result of the stillbirth, and the father for loss of her services and consortium, and additional award to the "distributees" of the foetus would give its parents an unmerited bounty and would constitute not compensation to the injured but punishment to the wrongdoer.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Chatelain v. Kelley · 726 F. Supp. 426 - In Re Joint Eastern & Southern Dist. Asbestos Lit.

2. “In other words, even if, as science and theology teach, the child begins a separate “life” from the moment of conception, it is clear that, “except in so far as is necessary to protect the child’s own rights” [Citation], the law has never considered the unborn foetus as having a separate “juridical existence” [Citation] or a legal personality or identity “until it sees the light of day.” [Citation] Indeed, one court has noted that, although a chüd en ventre sa mere may inherit, a still bom child may not pass his estate to heirs or next of kin and there is no way that next of kin may assert a right to share in the child’s inchoate estate. [Citation] Translated into tort law, this means that there is but a “conditional prospective liability * * * created when an unborn child * * * is injured” through the wrongful act of the defendant, and such liability attaches only upon fulfillment of the condition that the chüd be bom alive. [Citation]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 3 Ill. App. 3d 422 - Chrisafogeorgis v. Brandenberg

3. “It is argued that it is arbitrary and illogical to draw the line at birth, with the result that the distributees of an injured foetus which survives birth by a few minutes may have a recovery while those of a still born foetus may not. However, such difficulties are always present where a line must be drawn. To make viability rather than birth the test would not remove the difficulty but merely relocate it and increase a hundredfold the problems of causation and damages. Thus, one commentator aptly observed that (Wenger, Developments in the Law of Prenatal Wrongful Death, 69 Dickinson L.Rev. 258, 268), "since any limitation will be arbitrary in nature, a tangible and concrete event would be the most acceptable and workable boundary. Birth, being a definite, observable and significant event, meets this requirement."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Chatelain v. Kelley