Houston v. Ormes’s Empirical Analysis
252 U.S. 469 · 1920
Citation profile
82 federal appellate · 12 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 146 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2017 · most notably United States v. Munsey Trust Co. (1947), Mine Safety Appliances Co. v. Forrestal (1945)
82 federal appellate · 12 district · 11 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.
Appellate journey
reviewed47 App. D.C. 364 - McAdoo v. Ormes (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson · In re Ayers · State of Minnesota v. Ethan Allen Hitchcock · Belknap v. Schild · State of Louisiana Elliott v. Jumel
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 146 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“officers of the United States are sued, in appropriate form, to compel them to perform some ministerial duty imposed upon them by law, and which they wrongfully neglect or refuse to perform”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In the present case it is conceded, and properly conceded, that payment of the fund in question to the defendant Sanders is a ministerial duty, the performance of which could be compelled by a mandamus. But from this it is a, necessary consequence that one who has an equitable right in the fund as against Sanders may have relief against the officials of the Treasury through a mandatory writ of injunction, or a receivership which is its equivalent, making Sanders a party so as to bind her and so that the decree may afford a proper acquittance to the Government. The practice of bringing suits in equity for this purpose is well established in the courts of the District (Sanborn v. Maxwell, 18 App. D. C. 245 ; Roberts v. Consaul, 24 App. D. C. 551 , 562; Jones v. Rutherford, 26 App. D. C. 114 ; Parish v. McGowan, 39 App. D. C. 184 ; s. c. on appeal, McGowan v. Parish, 237 U. S. 285 , 295). Confined, as it necessarily must be, to cases where the officials of the Government have only a ministerial duty to perform, and one in which the party complainant has a particular interest, the practice is a convenient one, well supported by both principle and precedent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the officials of the Treasury are charged with the ministerial duty to make payment on demand to the person designated”
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.