Johns v. Marsh’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 state decisions

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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “But the prayer is defective in another particular. It required the jury to find, as a condition upon which they could render a verdict for the plaintiff, that the defendant had acted without reasonable and probable cause in instituting the criminal proceeding. Now, while it is perfectly well settled, that if there be reasonable or probable cause, to the knowledge and honest belief of the defendant, no malice, however flagrant or distinctly proved, will make the defendant liable, yet the question as to what does or does not amount to probable cause is not one to be submitted to the finding and conclusions of the jury. That question is one compounded of law and fact; and while the jury are required to find whether the facts alleged in support of the presence or absence of probable cause, and the inferences to be drawn therefrom, really exist, it is for the court to determine whether, upon the facts so found, there be probable cause or the want of it. ... In view of this well established principle, the prayer was properly rejected. . ..”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Palmer Ford, Inc. v. Wood

2. “[A]ny motive other than that of instituting the prosecution for the purpose of bringing the party to justice, is a malicious motive on the part of the person who acts under the influence of it.... “ [T]he term ‘malice,’ in this form of action, is not to be considered in the sense of spite or hatred ... but... as denoting that the party is actuated by improper and indirect motives.” If... a prosecution is initiated upon weak and unsubstantial ground ... for the accomplishment of any other object, aside from the apparent object of the prosecution and the vindication of public justice, the party who puts the criminal law in motion under such circumstances lays himself open to the charge of [having been] actuated by malice. [Johns v. Marsh, 52 Md. 323, 332-33 (1879) (citation omitted).]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Exxon Corp. v. Kelly