Praesel v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 54 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably Lee Lewis Construction, Inc. v. Harrison (2002), Gourdine v. Crews (2008)
4 federal appellate · 1 district · 54 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, 13th District)
Relationships
Relies on Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Co. · 17 Cal. 3d 425 - Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California · 27 Cal. 3d 741 - Thompson v. County of Alameda · Greater Houston Transportation Co. v. Phillips · Otis Engineering Corp. v. Clark
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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“whether one party would generally have superior knowledge of the risk or a right to control the actor who caused the harm.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Balancing both the need for and the effectiveness of a warning to a patient who already knows that he or she suffers from seizures against the burden of liability to third parties, we conclude that the benefit of warning an epileptic not to drive is incremental but that the consequences of imposing a duly are great. The responsibility for safe operation of a motor vehicle should remain primarily with the driver who is capable of ascertaining whether it is lawful to continue to drive once a disorder such as epilepsy has been diagnosed and seizures have occurred. Accordingly, we decline to impose on physicians a duty to third parties to warn an epileptic patient not to drive.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“In determining whether to erect a legal duty to warn, we must also consider the efficacy of that warning in preventing injury to third parties. We cannot simply assume that a person who is advised not to drive will actually respond and refrain from driving. The consequences of placing a legal duty on physicians to warn may subject them to substantial liability even though their warnings may not be effective to eliminate the risk in many cases. Unfortunately, many patients do not heed the admonitions of their physicians even though the consequences may be life-threatening to the patient or others.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.