Wilson v. Kuenzi’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
1 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently January 2025
1 district · 19 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 Roe v. Wade · Becker v. Schwartz · Berman v. Allan · Naccash v. Burger · 98 Wash. 2d 460 - Harbeson v. Parke-Davis, Inc.
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The heart of the problem in these cases is that the physician cannot be said to have caused the defect. The disorder is genetic and not the result of any injury negligently inflicted by the doctor. In addition it is incurable and was incurable from the moment of conception. Thus the doctor’s alleged negligent failure to detect it during prenatal examination cannot be considered a cause of the condition by analogy to those cases in which the doctor has failed to make a timely diagnosis of a curable disease. The child’s handicap is an inexorable result of conception and birth.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The heart of the problem in these cases is that the physician cannot be said to have caused the defect. The disorder is genetic and not the result of any injury negligently inflicted by the doctor. [[Image here]] In sum, by holding the doctor responsible for the birth of a genetically handicapped child, and thus obligated to pay most, if not all, of the costs of lifetime care and support, the court has created a kind of medical paternity suit.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“A reading of all of the cases persuades us that the real underlying problem in these cases stems from the fact that the courts have either closed their eyes to traditional tort causation, or have leaped over causation. Most courts have tried to cover the leap over causation by blending some causation language into their discussion of damages or into their discussions of public policy considerations.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.