Cottam v. CVS Pharmacy’s Empirical Analysis
2002
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 31 district · 65 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 107 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably Remy v. MacDonald (2004), Tech Plus, Inc. v. Ansel (2003)
6 federal appellate · 31 district · 65 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 Los Angeles Unified School District v. Los Angeles NAACP · Anthony's Pier Four, Inc. v. HBC ASSOCIATES · Mullins v. Pine Manor College · 153 Ill. 2d 26 - Frye v. Medicare-Glaser Corp. · MacDonald v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp.
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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of the other’s person or things, is subject to liability to the other for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to perform his undertaking, if (a) his failure to exercise such care increases the risk of harm, or (b) the harm is suffered because of the other’s reliance upon the undertaking.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“A pharmacy, like any other person or entity, may voluntarily assume a duty that would not otherwise be imposed on it, and thus may voluntarily assume a duty to provide information, advice or warnings to its customers. Massachusetts recognizes that “a duty voluntarily assumed must be performed with due care,” and we have approved the principles pertaining to voluntary assumption of a duty as set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323 (1965). Mullins v. Pine Manor College, 389 Mass. 47, 52, 53 , 449 N.E.2d 331 (1983). “If a person voluntarily assumes a duty or undertakes to render services to another that should have been seen as necessary for her protection, that person may be liable for harm caused because of the negligent performance of his undertaking.” Thorson v. Mandell, 402 Mass. 744, 748 , 525 N.E.2d 375 (1988) 2 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“filling a prescription for what the pharmacist knew to be a lethal dose, . . . failing to warn the customer when filling two prescriptions that adversely interact with one another, . . . and . . . failing to warn the customer of the drug's adverse interaction with alcohol where the customer was known by the pharmacist to be an alcoholic”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Correa v. Schoeck
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.