Ferrara v. Galluchio’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
27 federal appellate · 3 district · 45 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 135 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2016 · most notably 6 Cal. 4th 965 - Potter v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. (1993), Sterling v. Velsicol Chemical Corp. (1988)
27 federal appellate · 3 district · 45 state decisions — followed in 11 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 Bird v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance · Milks v. McIver · People v. . Jung Hing · People v. Hines · Brescia Construction Co. v. Walart Construction Co.
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 135 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Freedom from mental disturbance is now a protected interest in this State. “[T]he only valid objection against recovery for mental injury is the danger of vexatious suits and fictitious claims, which has loomed very large in the opinions as an obstacle. The danger is a real one, and must be met. Mental disturbance is easily simulated, and courts which are plagued with fraudulent personal injury claims may well be unwilling to open the door to an even more dubious field. But the difficulty is not insuperable. Not only fright and shock, but other kinds of mental injury are marked by definite physical symptoms, which are capable of clear medical proof. It is entirely possible to allow recovery only upon satisfactory evidence and deny it when there is nothing to corroborate the claim, or to look for some guarantee of genuineness in the circumstances of the case. The problem is one of adequate proof, and it is not necessary to deny a remedy in all cases because some claims may be false. The very clear tendency of the recent cases is to refuse to admit incompetence to deal with such a problem, and to find some basis for redress in a proper case.” Prosser on Torts, § 34, pp. 212-213.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“advised the plaintiff to have her shoulder checked every six months inasmuch as the area of the burn might become cancerous.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“entirely plausible . . . that plaintiff would undergo exceptional mental suffering.”
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.