Leahey v. Farrell’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
148 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 153 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably Wm. Penn Parking Garage, Inc. v. City of Pittsburgh (1975), Lavelle v. Koch (1992)
148 state decisions — followed in 14 states
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 Commonwealth Ex Rel. Schnader v. Liveright · Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission v. Israel · Commonwealth ex rel. Attorney General v. Mathues · Pennsylvania Co., Etc. v. Scott · Socialist Labor Case
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 153 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. . . there was no infringement upon judicial powers when the legislature, in the exercise of its power to regulate the fiscal affairs of the Commonwealth, set up a salary board and established an orderly method of fixing, inter alia, salaries of court employees. It became the duty of the court to comply first with the. statutory provisions and to make known to the board its reasonable requirements. It is only when a board acts arbitrarily or capriciously and refuses or neglects to comply with the reasonably necessary requirements of the court, whereby the administration of justice may be impaired or destroyed, that under the inherent power of the court, orders like that now complained of may be enforced by mandamus.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““Under the system of division of governmental powers it frequently happens that the function of one branch may overlap another. But the successful and efficient adminis tration of government assumes that each branch will cooperate with the others.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“A court must first comply with reasonable fiscal regulations of the legislature. Should the legislature, or the county salary board, act arbitrarily or capriciously and fail or neglect to provide a sufficient number of court employes or for the payment of adequate salaries to them, whereby the efficient administration of justice is impaired or destroyed, the court possesses the inherent power to supply the deficiency. Should such officials neglect or refuse to comply with the reasonable requirements of the court they may be required to do so by mandamus.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.