McCormick v. England’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 49 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2023 · most notably Crystal Fergusons v. City of Charleston (2001), Steinke v. South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulation (1999)
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 49 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 Sloan v. Hicks · Carroll v. Alberts · Ludwick v. This Minute of Carolina, Inc. · Alberts v. Devine · Vassiliades v. Garfinckel's, Brooks Bros.
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) state physician licensing statutes, (2) evidentiary rules and privileged communication statutes which prohibit a physician from testifying in judicial proceedings; (3) common law principles of trust, and (4) the Hippocratic Oath and principles of medical ethics which proscribe the revelation of patient confidences.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he belief that physicians should respect the confidences revealed by their patients in the course of treatment is a concept that has its genesis in the Hippocratic Oath, which states in [relevant] part: 'Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.' " McCormick v. England , supra, 328 S.C. at 635 , 494 S.E.2d 431 , quoting Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (17th Ed. 1993), p. 902. Explaining that "[t]he modern trend recognizes that the confidentiality of the physician-patient relationship is an interest worth protecting,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Invasion of privacy consists of the public disclosure of private facts about the plaintiff, and the gravamen of the tort is publicity as opposed to mere publication. The defendant must intentionally reveal facts which are of no legitimate public interest, as there is no right of privacy in public matters. In addition, the disclosure must be such as would be highly offensive and likely to cause serious mental injury to a person of ordinary sensibilities.”
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.