52 N.C. App. 255 - Smithers v. Collins’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The courts generally recognize that the science of medicine is an experimental science and they have been extremely careful to protect physicians and surgeons against verdicts resting on non-expert testimony in those cases where non-expert testimony could constitute nothing more than mere conjecture or surmise . . . .Yet this Court has not and could not go so far as to say that in no event may a physician or surgeon be held liable for the results of his negligence unless the causal connection between the negligence and the injury or death be established by the testimony of a brother member of defendant’s profession. ... [I]n many instances proximate cause can be established only through the medium of expert testimony. There are others, however, where non-expert jurors of ordinary intelligence may draw their own inferences from the facts and circumstances shown in evidence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. McGill v. French

2. “Usually [the question of] what is the standard of care required of a physician or surgeon is one concerning highly specialized knowledge with respect to which a layman can have no reliable information. As to this, both the court and jury must be dependent on expert testimony. Ordinarily there can be no other guide.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 61 N.C. App. 170 - Mazza v. Huffaker