Parker v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
1940
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions — most recently January 2010 · most notably Steinke v. South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulation (1999), Jensen Ex Rel. Estate of Clark v. Anderson County Department of Social Services (1991)
24 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.
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The law necessarily grants certain discretion to its officers in handling the public business. In one instance it may be wise for a public officer to pursue one course, in another instance, another course. Those charged with protecting the public interest should view that interest as supreme, should consider what is best for the public, and should be free at all times to prosecute the course that appears to be in the public interest. ... It is well settled that an individual has no right of action against a public officer for breach of a duty owing to the public only, even though such individual be specially injured thereby. Where a duty is owing to the public only, an officer is not liable to an individual who may have been incidentally injured by his failure to perform, it.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The law necessarily grants certain discretion to its officers in handling the public business. In one instance it may be wise for a public officer to pursue one course, in another instance, another course. Those charged with protecting the public interest should view that interest as supreme, should consider what is best for the public, and should be free at all times to prosecute the course that appears to be in the public interest____ It is well settled that an individual has no right of action against a public officer for breach of a duty owing to the public only, even though such individual be specially injured thereby. Where a duty is owing to the public only, an officer is not liable to an individual who may have been incidentally injured by his failure to perform it. Throop on Public Officers, Section 708 (page 668), states: ‘A private action can not be sustained, for failure to discharge a duty owing exclusively to the public, even by a person specially injured thereby.’”
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.