Martin v. Catterson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Such a result would reward negligent doctors for the death of their patients. For no good reason, such a rule would make it cheaper in some cases (like this one) to kill a patient than to maim him. Further, it would encourage defendants to prolong litigation in hope that a plaintiffs claims would die with him. [[Image here]] Transformation of the common-law claims to statutory claims because of Donald Martin’s death does not suddenly end their protection under the open-courts doctrine. Though the claims are now statutory, they were not statutory when the negligence occurred, when the suit was filed, or at any time before Mr. Martin died. Because the claims were cognizable common-law causes of action when filed and at all times before Mr. Martin died, we hold that the open-courts doctrine applies and these claims are not barred by limitations.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Batten v. Hunt · Catterson v. Martin