Wasem v. Laskowski’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently July 2014 · most notably South v. National Railroad Passenger Corp. (1980), Winkjer v. Herr (1979)
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 23 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 Arneson v. Olson · Mulder v. Parke Davis & Company · Nolan v. Dillon · Mueller v. Mueller · People v. Rutigliano
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“While the doctrine may aid a plaintiff in some medical malpractice eases, and may indeed be used in lieu of expert medical testimony in some such cases, it applies only where the facts showing negligence are within the understanding of laymen, and the probability of the adverse result from the facts shown within the common knowledge of laymen. The rule is stated in the decision of U.S. District Judge Davies, construing North Dakota law, in Swanson v. Hill, 166 F.Supp. 296 (D.C.N.D.1958): “The only exception to the principle that the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur may not be invoked in actions for malpractice, consists of cases where the undesirable result is such that it is evident even to a layman and could not have occurred except for the doctor’s negligence, as, for instance, when a foreign object is left in a wound after an operation.” [Quoted from Johnston v. Rodis, D.C. 1957, 151 F.Supp. 345, 346 ].”
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.