8 Cal. 3d 229 - Cobbs v. Grant’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
43 federal appellate · 15 district · 607 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 721 later decisions — most recently September 2024 · most notably 17 Cal. 3d 425 - Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California (1976), 51 Cal. 3d 120 - Moore v. Regents of University of California (1990)
43 federal appellate · 15 district · 607 state decisions — followed in 38 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 46 Cal. 2d 818 - People v. Watson · 25 Cal. 2d 486 - Ybarra v. Spangard · Canterbury v. Spence · Natanson v. Kline · 154 Cal. App. 2d 560 - Salgo v. Leland Stanford Jr. University Board of Trustees
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 721 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The battery theory should be reserved for those circumstances when a doctor performs an operation to which the patient has not consented. When the patient gives permission to perform one type of treatment and the doctor performs another, the requisite element of deliberate intent to deviate from the consent given is present. However, when the patient consents to certain treatment and the doctor performs that treatment but an undisclosed inherent complication with a low probability occurs, no intentional deviation from the consent given appears; rather, the doctor in obtaining consent may have failed to meet his due care duty to disclose pertinent information. In that situation the action should be pleaded in negligence.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage“"[T]he patient's right of self-decision is the measure of the physician's duty to reveal. That right can be effectively exercised only if the patient possesses adequate information to enable an intelligent choice. The scope of the physician's communications to the patient, then, must be measured by the patient's need, and that need is whatever information is material to the decision. Thus the test for determining whether a potential peril must be divulged is its materiality to the patient's decision." Cobbs, supra, 104 Cal. Rptr. at 515 , 502 P.2d at 11 , citing Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772, 786 (D.C. Cir.1972).”
14 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Rook v. Trout · Hannemann v. Boyson“Since at the time of trial the uncommunicated hazard has materialized, it would be surprising if the patient-plaintiff did not claim that had he been informed of the dangers he would have declined treatment. Subjectively he may believe so with the 20-20 vision of hindsight, but we doubt that justice will be served by placing the physician in jeopardy of the patient's bitterness and disillusionment.”
12 later decisions 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.