Stills v. Gratton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 2 district · 82 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 89 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““§ 920. Benefit to Plaintiff Resulting from Defendant's Tort. When the defendant’s tortious conduct has caused harm to the plaintiff or to his property and in so doing has conferred a special benefit to the interest of the plaintiff that was harmed, the value of the benefit conferred is considered in mitigation of damages, to the extent that this is equitable.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Nanke v. Napier · Byrd v. Wesley Medical Center

2. “. . . Damages are measured by comparing the condition plaintiff would have been in, had the defendants not been negligent, with plaintiff's impaired condition as a result of the negligence. The infant plaintiff would have us measure the difference between his life with defects against the utter void of nonexistence, but it is impossible to make such a determination. This Court cannot weigh the value of life with impairments against the nonexistence of life itself. *Page 548 By asserting that he should have not been born, the infant plaintiff makes it logically impossible for a court to measure his alleged damages because of the impossibility of making the comparison required by compensatory remedies. As a recent commentator put the matter: "`[N]o comparison is possible since were it not for the act of birth the infant would not exist. By his cause of action, the plaintiff cuts from under himself the ground upon which he needs to rely in order to prove his damage.' Tedeschi, `On Tort Liability for "Wrongful Life,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 361 So. 2d 546 - Elliott v. Brown

3. ““To permit the parents to keep their child and shift the entire cost of its upbringing to a physician who failed to determine or inform them of the fact of pregnancy would be to create a new category of surrogate parent. Every child’s smile, every bond of love and affection, every reason for parental pride in a child’s achievements, every contribution by the child to the welfare and well-being of the family and parents, is to remain with the mother and father. For the most part, these are intangible benefits, but they are nonetheless real. On the other hand, every financial cost or detriment — what the complaint terms ‘hard money damages’— including the cost of food, clothing and education, would be shifted to the physician who allegedly failed to timely diagnose the fact of pregnancy. We hold that such result would be wholly out of proportion to the culpability involved, and that the allowance of recovery would place too unreasonable a burden upon physicians, under the facts and circumstances here alleged.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 73 Ill. App. 3d 51 - Wilczynski v. Goodman