Lovelace v. Giddens’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
6 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on 617 So. 2d 880 - Stobart v. State Through DOTD · 582 So. 2d 1272 - Martin v. East Jefferson General Hosp. · 498 So. 2d 713 - Hastings v. Baton Rouge General Hospital · Smith v. State Dept. of Health & Hosp. · Beckham v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Obviously, Mrs. Lovelace had a pre-ex-isting illness not caused by Dr. Giddens; however, a physician’s failure or delay in diagnosing a serious illness could in some circumstances diminish or destroy the patient’s opportunity or chance for a cure or recovery. A wrongful death claim requires proof by a preponderance of the evidence, or more than fifty percent, that the doctor’s malpractice caused the patient’s death. Many patients, however, live when their chances were initially believed to be less than even. The harshness of this traditional standard of proof has been recognized as unfair when medical fault takes away an opportunity to survive. The doctrine of a lost chance of survival takes into account this real consequence |sof physician fault and seeks to protect the possibility for a favorable outcome, even where the patient’s chances of recovery were initially believed to be less than fifty percent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Coody v. Barraza
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.