Mullan v. Hacker’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
2 district · 39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently October 2001 · most notably 41 Md. App. 579 - Lahocki v. Contee Sand & Gravel Co. (1979), Superior Construction Co. v. Elmo (1954)
2 district · 39 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.
Relationships
Relies on Transportation Company v. Chicago · Bloom v. Good Humor Ice Cream Co. · Langenfelder v. Thompson · Gilmore v. Driscoll · Baltimore & Potomac Railroad v. Reaney
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is an ancient principle of the common law that every owner of land has the right to lateral support from the adjoining soil, and if a landowner removes the earth from his own land so near the land of his neighbor that his neighbor’s soil will crumble away under its own weight, he is liable for damages so occasioned. [T]he right in respect to the land itself in its natural condition is absolute. ... It is well settled, however, that the right of lateral support applies only to the soil in its natural condition. It does not apply to buildings on the land. . . Hence, where an excavation is made by a landowner on his own land for a proper purpose and it is not done negligently, unskillfully, or with improper motives, any damage occasioned to a building on adjoining land is dam-num absque injuria.” (citations omitted) 49 A.2d 642 (emphasis supplied).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“"It is an ancient principle of the common law that every owner of land has the right to lateral support from the adjoining soil, and if a landowner removes the earth from his own land so near the land of his neighbor that his neighbor’s soil will crumble away under its own weight, he is liable for damages so occasioned. * * * [T]he right in respect to the land itself in its natural condition is absolute. * * * It is well settled however, that the right of lateral support applies only to the soil in its natural condition. It does not apply to buildings on the land. * * * Hence, where an excavation is made by a landowner on his own land for a proper purpose and it is not done negligently, unskillfully, or with improper motives, any damage occasioned to a building on adjoining land is damnum absque injuria.” 49 A.2d 642 (emphasis supplied).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The general rule in Maryland for the measure of damages for injuries to real property is that where the damaged property can be restored to the condition it was in prior to the injury, without cost disproportionate to the actual injury, the cost of such restoration is the measure of damages; but where that is impracticable, then the difference between the value of the property before and after the injury is the correct measure. .”
1 later decision 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.