Rockefeller v. Moront’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The “foreign object” rule, first enunciated by this Court in Flanagan ... provides an exception to th[e] general principle [that the limitations period for medical malpractice actions generally runs from the date of the last act constituting the basis of the claim], where an object not intended to remain is negligently “left in a patient’s body” after the completion of a medical procedure_ In such instances, the applicable limitations period will not commence to run “until the patient could have reasonably discovered the malpractice” ... We stated in Flanagan that, unlike in cases where the plaintiffs malpractice claim is predicated on negligent “medical treatment” or practice ... application of a discovery rule is justified in foreign object cases because the presence of the foreign object — in that case, surgical clamps forgotten in the plaintiffs body after surgery — did not create a danger of false or belated claims, did not “raise questions as to credibility,” and did not “rest on professional diagnostic judgment or discretion....””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Adams v. New Rochelle Hospital Medical Center

2. “is more accurately characterized as a challenge to [the] defendant [doctor's] medical judgment and treatment—i.e., his placement of the suture—and not as one predicated on defendant's failure to remove medical material that should have been extracted at the close of the operation.... if plaintiff were permitted to proceed with this action, defendants would be called upon to justify [the doctor's] professional judgment and the practices he employed in providing plaintiff with medical treatment—a task which would be rendered extremely difficult due to the significant lapse in time and the attendant loss of evidence and witnesses likely to coincide with the delay.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 94 Cal. App. 4th 245 - Duncan v. Spivak

3. “(Shah, at p. 957) ].) [8] In the instant case, Duncan's claim is more accurately characterized as a challenge to Spivak's medical judgment and treatment than as a challenge based on Spivak's failure to remove medical material that should have been extracted at the close of the operation. If Duncan's case were permitted to proceed, Spivak would be required to justify his professional judgment and the practices he employed in providing Duncan with medical treatment. As the court reasoned in Rockefeller ,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 94 Cal. App. 4th 245 - Duncan v. Spivak