Wang v. Patterson’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently February 2011
8 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 101 N.J. Super. 15 - CUPROWSKI v. City of Jersey City · City of Bristol v. Horter · 198 N.J. Super. 531 - D'Ercole v. MAYOR & COUNCIL, ETC. · Baker v. Jackson · Chicago, M. & St. P. R. v. Mason
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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Any legislative decision of a governing body is subject to the referendum process. A legislative decision is one that enacts a permanent law or lays down a rule of conduct or course of policy for the guidance of citizens or their officers. Any matter of a permanent or general character is a legislative decision. No administrative decision of a governing body is subject to the referendum process, unless specifically authorized by this code. An administrative decision is one that merely puts into execution a plan already adopted by the governing body itself or by the Legislature. Supervision of a program is an administrative decision. Hiring, disciplining and setting the salaries of employees are administrative decisions.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“Citizens note that the master plan did not authorize condemnation and thus did not apprise them of the fact that land would be condemned for the proposed airport. They contend that the resolutions of condemnation were city's first actions which apprised them that the city was definitely going to condemn specific land for the proposed airport. Thus, they claim they should be allowed to refer the resolutions of condemnation. We agree. "Where discretion is left to the local government as to what it may do, when the local government acts, it acts legislatively and its actions are subject to normal referendum procedure." 5 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 1655. In applying the "legislative" versus "administrative" distinction this Court will apply a liberal rule of construction permitting rather than preventing, citizens from exercising their powers of referendum. See generally 5 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 1651 and cases cited therein. The December 21, 1987 motion to adopt alternative # 11 as the master plan did not direct the condemnation of any land. Similarly, the March 6, 1989 motion simply indicated that the city council was willing to proceed with land condemnation "if required." The city council still retained discretion to decide whether condemnation was necessary. When the city council passed the resolutions of condemnation on April 2, 1990, they were exercising that discretion and their decision was legislative and subject to referendum.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he distinction is rooted in realism. Clearly, all municipal action cannot be subject to local review by the electorate. “If government is to function there must be some area in which representative action will be final. In many situations it is difficult to determine how far the limitations should go. The courts must draw the line in these situations and in so doing must balance two interests— the protection of city government from harassment as against the benefits of direct legislation by the people.””
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.