Bond v. Messerman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 2 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. “On June 19, 1981, in the garage of his grandparents’ home in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, little more than seven months before his eighteenth birthday, [Bond] bludgeoned his father to death with a hammer. After murdering his father, [Bond] stuffed the body into the trunk of his father’s car, drove it to an isolated location, and left the car there. A warrant for [Bond]’s arrest was issued three days later. Messerman, an Ohio attorney, was retained to represent [Bond]. On July 1, 1981, Judge Frank G. Lavrich, of the Juvenile Division of the Geauga County, Ohio Common Pleas Court, heard sufficient evidence “tending to show that there is reason to believe that William Rovtar[ 3 ] did commit the offense as charged in the complaint and that said act would constitute a felony if committed by an adult.” The judge ordered that [Bond] be held at the Geauga Juvenile Center and undergo psychological testing. On August 31, 1981, based on an agreement Messerman negotiated with the prosecutor, Judge Lavrich agreed to retain jurisdiction in the Juvenile Division, and he accepted [Bond]’s guilty plea to his father’s murder. Part of the plea agreement included [Bond]’s commitment to a psychiatrist hospital, and Messerman located and recommended Sheppard Pratt, in Baltimore County, Maryland, as a suitable hospital. [Bond] alleges that he and Messerman “discussed the concept of expungement in 1981, prior to the proffer of the delinquent plea ..., its legal effects under Ohio law and the importance to [”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bond v. Messerman

2. “1. Shortly after December 4, 1985, [Bond] called Messerman, in Ohio, and was told by Messerman that his Ohio juvenile record would be expunged. 2. In January 1986, Messerman mailed a letter to Maryland, which was addressed to [Bond], asking [Bond] to remind him in two years to file for an expungement of [Bond’s] juvenile record. 3. [Bond], in 1986, phoned Messerman in Ohio and told him that he ought to file the petition for expungement without a reminder. Messerman orally agreed to do so. 4. [Bond] wrote to Messerman in Ohio in 1994, which was after he had filed for at least one gun permit, asking for a copy of the transcript showing that his juvenile record had been expunged or, in the alternative, asking (that if the record had not been expunged) to now have it expunged. 5. On May 16, 1994, Messerman responded to [Bond’s] May 12, 1999, missive with a letter to [Bond] in Maryland. In that letter he told [Bond] that there was no Ohio procedure for expunging a juvenile record but that he need not worry about the lack of expungement because the records were “private, confidential and sealed.” 6. On June 2, 1994, [Bond] wrote to Messerman in Ohio, questioning his statement that the juvenile records were “automatically expunged.” 7. Also in June 1994, [Bond] followed up on his June 2 letter by phoning Messerman in Ohio. In that phone conversation, Messerman reiterated that the Ohio juvenile record had been expunged, and as a consequence, [Bond] had “nothing to worry about.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bond v. Messerman

3. “1. Whether a lawyer, or other professional, has transacted business or performed a service in Maryland under Courts and Judicial Proceedings, § 6—103(b)(1)[ 1 ] for purposes of establishing personal jurisdiction when the lawyer, never physically present in Maryland, provides negligent professional advice by mail and telephone to a person the lawyer knows resides in Maryland and will rely upon the negligent professional advice in Maryland; 2. Whether a lawyer, or other professional, “causes tortious injury in the State by an act or omission in the State” under Courts and Judicial Proceedings, § 6-103(b)(3)[ 2 ] when the lawyer provides negligent professional advice by mail or telephone, never physically entering Maryland, to a person he knows resides in Maryland and who will rely upon the negligent advice in Maryland; and 3. Whether communicating negligent legal advice into Maryland is a sufficient minimum contact to establish personal jurisdiction under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bond v. Messerman