Horne v. Patton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 90 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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A patient should be entitled to freely disclose his symptoms and condition to his doctor in order to receive proper treatment without fear that those facts may become public property. Only thus can the purpose of the relationship be fulfilled. So here, when the plaintiffs contracted with defendant for services to be performed for their infant child, he was under a general duty not to disclose frivolously the information received from them, or from an examination of the patient. This is not to say that the patient enjoys an absolute right, but rather that he possesses a limited right against such disclosure, subject to exceptions prompted by the supervening interest of society. We conclude, therefore, that ordinarily a physician receives information relating to a patient’s health in a confidential capacity and should not disclose such information without the patient’s consent, except where the public interest or the private interest of the patient so demands. Without delineating the precise contours of the exceptions, it may generally be said that disclosure may, under such compelling circumstances, be made to a person with a legitimate interest in the patient’s health. One of these exceptions arises where, as here, the physical condition of the patient is made an element of a claim. While that claim had not yet been pressed to litigation, the same policy which during litigation permits, even demands, disclosure of information acquired during the course of the physician-patien”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Dubin v. Wakuzawa