Case Citator › Nelson v. Krusen

Nelson v. Krusen

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of Texas
Citation
678 S.W.2d 918
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
39 of 39
Citing cases (total)
39
Treatment dates
1995–2003
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Limited: later Texas courts confined Nelson v. Krusen's open courts reasoning. The Texas Supreme Court declined to extend its reasonable time rule to claims brought by minors after they reach adulthood, and an Austin appeals court read its “should have known” language in light of the impossible condition doctrine.
More on how this was screened

All 39 flagged citations have been read; the two confirmed treatments are listed below. Nelson's separate holding that Texas does not recognize a wrongful life claim remains cited.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

39 later cases cite Nelson v. Krusen; 39 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Nelson v. Krusen?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Texas Supreme Court declined to extend Nelson's reasonable time rule to minors suing after they reached adulthood.

    Weiner v. Wasson · Supreme Court of Texas · filed

    The reasonable-time rule is a court-made standard, which has heretofore been applied only in a limited number of cases involving adult plaintiffs who, because of the nature of their claim, did not have a reasonable opportunity to discover their injuries and bring suit within a prescribed limitations period. See Nelson v. Krusen, 678 S.W.2d at 921-22. The reasonable-time rule, in effect, allows certain adult plaintiffs two years plus a reasonable time to bring suit. Despite the fact that we have never applied the reasonable-time rule to cases other than those involving claims that are by their nature exceedingly difficult or impossible to discover, Weiner urges us to hold that minors have only a reasonable time after attaining age eighteen to bring suit. We decline to do so.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Austin appeals court confined Nelson's “should have known” language to injuries that were impossible to discover within the limitations period.

    O'Reilly v. Wiseman · Texas Court of Appeals, Third District (Austin) · filed

    Although in Nelson the court used the phrase "should have known," that language seems to be at odds with the "not possible" rationale actually adopted. (9) Finding that the Nelsons "could not" reasonably have detected their child's disease because it was masked by the typical clumsiness of a two-year-old, the court analogized their situation to the "impossible condition[s]" and "requirement[s]" placed on litigants in prior open-courts cases. Nelson, 678 S.W.2d at 920, 922-23 (emphasis added). Viewed in light of the language in the rest of the opinion, the court's use of the phrase "should have known" is restricted by the "impossible condition" doctrine.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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