Payton v. Abbott Labs’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 14 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently August 2012 · most notably Halberstam v. Welch (1983), 351 Pa. Super. 264 - Burnside v. Abbott Laboratories (1985)
8 federal appellate · 14 district · 20 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 Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States · Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc. · Robert C. Hahn v. Francis W. Sargent · 26 Cal. 3d 588 - Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories · Mounsey v. Ellard
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(b) knows that the other's conduct constitutes a breach of duty and gives substantial assistance or encouragement to the other so to conduct himself.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The concert of action theory in Massachusetts tracks Sec. 876(a) of the Restatement.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The gravamen of the charge of concert is that defendants failed to adequately test the drug or to give sufficient warning of its dangers and that they relied upon the tests performed by one another and took advantage of each other’s promotional and marketing techniques. These allegations do not amount to a charge that there was a tacit understanding or a common plan among defendants to fail to conduct adequate tests or give sufficient warnings, and that they substantially aided and encouraged one another in these omissions. What the complaint appears to charge is defendants’ parallel or imitative conduct in that they relied upon each other’s testing and promotion methods. But such conduct describes a common practice in industry: a producer avails himself of the experiences and methods of others making the same or similar products. Application of the concept of concert of action to the situation would expand the doctrine far beyond its intended scope and would render virtually any manufacturer liable for the defective products of an entire industry, even if it could be demonstrated that the product which caused the injury was not made by the defendant.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.