Thomas v. Corso’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 6 district · 98 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 124 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably Hamil v. Bashline (1978), Sard v. Hardy (1977)
16 federal appellate · 6 district · 98 state decisions — followed in 14 states
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 Hicks v. United States · Cotham and Maldonado v. Board of County Commissioners · Nizer v. Phelps · Central Cab Co. v. Clarke · Johns Hopkins Hospital v. Genda
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 124 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““When a defendant’s negligent action or inaction has effectively terminated a-person’s chance of survival, it does not lie in the defendant’s mouth to raise conjectures as to the measure of the chances that he has put beyond the possibility of realization. If there was any substantial possibility of survival and the defendant has destroyed it, he is answerable. Rarely is it possible to demonstrate to an absolute certainty what would have happened in circumstances that the wrongdoer did not allow to come to pass. The law does not in the existing circumstances require the plaintiff to show to a certainty that the patient would have lived had she been hospitalized and operated on promptly. Harvey v. Silber, 300 Mich. 510 , 2 N.W.2d 483 (1942).” 368 F.2d at 632 . (Emphasis supplied.)”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In 1 Louisell and Williams, Medical Malpractice, § 8.05, pp. 206-07, it is stated: ‘The duty to attend the patient after a physician-patient relationship has been established is a clearly defined specific duty within the general duty of due care. A physician cannot properly withdraw from a case under diagnosis or treatment without giving reasonable notice. How much attention a particular case may require in order to satisfy the standard of reasonable care, often is a matter for expert evidence. It requires no expert evidence, however, to show that failure altogether to attend a patient, when common sense indicates that without attention the consequences may be serious, is not reasonable care.’ (Emphasis supplied.)””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he jury could have reasonably concluded that under the circumstances of this case that if Dr. Thomas had performed his duty to attend Corso personally shortly after he was telephoned at 11:30 p.m., Dr. Thomas might well have been able to have saved his life and that this negligent conduct was one of the direct and proximate causes of Corso’s death, concurrent with the negligence of the nurses.”
2 later decisions 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.