Eichner v. Dillon’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 3 district · 120 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 165 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2011 · most notably Cruzan Ex Rel. Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health (1990), Vacco v. Quill (1997)
16 federal appellate · 3 district · 120 state decisions — followed in 22 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.
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 165 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“it is unrealistic to attempt to determine whether [a patient suffering from cancer] would want to continue potentially life prolonging treatment if he were competent”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“transfusions were analogous to food—they would not cure the cancer, but they could eliminate the risk of death from another treatable cause.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body.”
3 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.