38 Md. App. 1 - Tennison v. Shomette’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently August 2023
18 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 Hyson v. Montgomery County Council · Cassel v. Mayor of Baltimore · Huff v. Board of Zoning Appeals · Hewitt v. County Commissioners · Chapman v. Montgomery County Council
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Zoning is permissible only as an exercise of the police power of the State. When this power is exercised by a city, it is confined by the limitations fixed in the grant by the State and to the accomplishment of the purposes for which the State authorized the city to zone.... ... `Spot zoning,' the arbitrary and unreasonable devotion of a small area within a zoning district to a use which is inconsistent with the use to which the rest of the district is restricted, has appeared in many cities in America as the result of pressure put upon councilmen to pass amendments to zoning ordinances solely for the benefit of private interests.... It is, therefore, universally held that a `spot zoning' ordinance, which singles out a parcel of land within the limits of a use district and marks it off into a separate district for the benefit of the owner, thereby permitting a use of that parcel inconsistent with the use permitted in the rest of the district, is invalid if it is not in accordance with the comprehensive zoning plan and is merely for private gain. On the other hand, it has been decided that a use permitted in a small area, which is not inconsistent with the use to which the larger surrounding area is restricted, although it may be different from that use, is not `spot zoning' when it does not conflict with the comprehensive plan but is in harmony with an orderly growth of a new use for property in the locality. The courts have accordingly upheld the creation of small districts ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[s]pot zoning occurs when a small area in a District is placed in a different zoning classification than the surrounding property ... Spot zoning is not invalid per se. Rather, its validity depends on the facts of each individual case .... while spot zoning is illegal if it is inconsistent with an established comprehensive plan and is made solely for the benefit of a private interest, it is a valid exercise of the police power where the zoning is in harmony with the comprehensive plan and there is a substantial relationship to the public health, safety and general welfare.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Once evidence strong enough to render the issue of rezoning fairly debatable is produced, the change in zoning will be upheld since it is not the function of the courts to substitute their judgment for that of the zoning authority.” Applying these principles to the instant case, and after a careful review of the record, we conclude that the evidence before the board was sufficient to render the issue of”
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.