mandamus

/maendeymas/ We command. This is the name of a writ (formerly a high prerogative writ) which issues from a court of superior jurisdiction, and is directed to a private or municipal corporation, or any of its officers, or to an executive, administrative or judicial officer, or to an inferior court, commanding the performance of a particular act therein specified, and belonging to his or their public, official, or ministerial duty, or directing the restoration of the complainant to rights or privileges of which he has been illegally deprived. A writ issuing from a court of competent jurisdiction, commanding an inferior tribunal, board, corporation, or person to perform a purely ministerial duty imposed by law. Nebel v. Nebel, 241 N.C. 491, 85 S.E.2d 876, 882. Extraordinary writ which lies to compel performance of ministerial act or mandatory duty where there is a clear legal right in plaintiff, a corresponding duty in defendant, and a want of any other appropriate and adequate remedy. Cohen v. Ford, 19 Pa.Cmwlth. 417, 339 A.2d 175, 177.

See also ministerial act.

The U.S. District Courts have original jurisdiction of any action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff. 28 U.S.C.A. No. 1361. Mandamus has traditionally issued in response to abuses of judicial power. Thus, where a district judge refuses to take some action he is required to take or takes some action he is not empowered to take, mandamus will lie. Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U.S. 379, 384, 74 S.Ct. 145, 98 L.Ed. 106.

The Supreme Court may issue a writ of mandamus in aid of the appellate jurisdiction that might otherwise be defeated by the unauthorized action of the court below. McClellan v. Garland, 217 U.S. 268, 30 S.Ct. 501, 503, 54 L.Ed. 762.

The remedy of mandamus is a drastic one, to be invoked only in extraordinary situations. Banker's Life & Cas. Co. v. Holland, 346 U.S. 379, 382-385, 74 S.Ct. 145, 147-149, 98 L.Ed. 106; Ex parte Fahey, 332 U.S. 258, 259, 67 S.Ct. 1558, 1559, 91 L.Ed. 2041.

The writ has traditionally been used in the federal courts only "to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so." Will v. United States, 389 U.S., at 95, 88 S.Ct., at 273, quoting Roche v. Evaporated Milk Assn., 319 U.S. 21, 26, 63 S.Ct. 938, 941, 87 L.Ed. 1185.

Pleading

Like most of the extraordinary writs, the writ of mandamus has been abolished under rules practice in favor of a complaint or motion in the nature of mandamus which accomplishes the same object; e.g. Federal or Mass.R.Civ.P. 81(b)