St. John v. Pope’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently April 2022 · most notably Van Horn v. Chambers (1998), City of Amarillo v. Martin (1998)
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 57 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Texas Court of Appeals, 3rd District (Austin))
Relationships
Relies on Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. DeLanney · Bird v. W.C.W. · Hood v. Phillips · Wheeler v. Yettie Kersting Memorial Hospital · Lopez v. Aziz
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Pjhysicians are not obligated to practice their profession or render services to everyone who asks. It is only with a physicians consent, whether express or implied, that the doctor-patient relationship comes into being. Thus, we agree with those cases that hold that the duty to treat the patient with proper professional skill flows from the consensual relationship between the patient and physician, and only when that relationship exists can there be a breach of a duty resulting in medical malpractice.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Although St. John listened to Suarez’s description of Pope’s symptoms, and came to a conclusion about the basis of Pope’s condition, he did so for the purpose of evaluating whether he should take the case, not as a diagnosis for a course of treatment.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Gross v. Burt · Jackson v. Isaac“Creation of the physician-patient relationship does not require the formalities of a contract. The fact that a physician does not deal directly with a patient does not necessarily preclude the existence of a physician-patient relationship.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.