Heghinian v. Ford’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
5 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Buchholtz v. Hill · Baltimore Retail Liquor Package Stores Ass'n v. Board of License Commissioners · Levering v. Park Commissioners · Pressman v. Elgin · Pumphrey v. Mayor of Baltimore
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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Mandamus was originally a prerogative writ and a private citizen could not obtain it to compel performance of a public duty unless he had an individual and separate interest in the matter, not common to other citizens, and it was necessary for a government law officer to move for the mandamus. Later the prevailing view came to be, generally and in Maryland, and long has been, that ‘* * * private citizens may move for mandamus, to enforce a public duty, not due to the government as such, without the intervention of the government law officer.’ Pumphrey v. Baltimore, 47 Md. 145, 154 . The rationale of this rule seems to be that if the duty is one in which the public, or a segment of the public, has an interest, an individual who is a member of the group which has such an interest may act on behalf of that group by virtue of the interest he shares with the others. It is still true, nevertheless, that to be entitled to the issuance of the writ of mandamus, the relator must have a real interest in the subject matter of the suit whether it be his alone or shared by a great number of people, and the respondent must owe him, or the group of which he is a member, an imperative duty. Pressman v. Elgin, 187 Md. 446, 452 ; Buchholtz v. Hill, 178 Md. 280, 288 . The cases in which this Court has held that the writ should issue in favor of an individual who shared an interest with the general public, show that the duty which is to be compelled is a duty owed to the public.””
2 later decisions 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.