Lininger Ex Rel. Lininger v. Eisenbaum’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions — most recently January 2025 · most notably Compass Insurance Co. v. City of Littleton (1999), Cowe Ex Rel. Cowe v. Forum Group, Inc. (1991)
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 36 state decisions — followed in 17 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.
Relationships
Relies on Lord Electric Co. v. United States · Terrell v. United States · Becker v. Schwartz · 31 Cal. 3d 220 - Turpin v. Sortini · Naccash v. Burger
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Wjhile both the majority and concurring opinions attempt to frame the relevant issue ... as whether [the child’s] life can constitute a legal injury in the context of a prima facie case for medical malpractice, “we need not find that ‘life, even life with severe defects,’ constitutes a legal injury in order to recognize the ... claim for relief’ because “[t]he resulting injury to the plaintiff parents lies in their being deprived of the opportunity to make an informed decision to terminate the pregnancy[.]” ... [Although one facet of a plaintiffs compensable damages in such cases may consist of extraordinary costs associated with the care and education of a child with birth-defect-related disabilities, those damages are available only because they are the result of a physician’s violation of the patient’s right to make an informed procreative decision[J”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“in the first instance that [the child] ha[d] been injured.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“"Our finding of such [a wrongful life] injury would require first, that we value [the child's] present station in life; second, that we ascertain the value to [the child] of his not having been born; and finally, that we determine that the latter value is greater than the former. Because we find it impossible to complete those steps in any rational, principled manner, we cannot find that [the child] has suffered an injury sufficient to support a claim for relief."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.