United States Federal Courts

United States

In the administrative law context in the United States, the requirement that mandamus can be used only to compel a ministerial act has largely been abandoned. By statute or by judicial expansion of the writ of mandamus in most of the U.S. states, acts of administrative agencies are now subject to judicial review for abuse of discretion. Judicial review of agencies of the United States federal government, for abuse of discretion, is authorized by the U.S. Administrative Procedure Act.

Federal courts

The authority of the United States district courts (trial courts) to issue mandamus has been expressly abrogated by Rule 81(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but relief in the nature of mandamus can be had by other remedies provided for in the Rules, where provided by statute, or by use of the district courts' equitable powers.

In the context of mandamus from a United States court of appeals to a district court, the Supreme Court has ruled that the appellate courts have discretion to issue mandamus to control an abuse of discretion by the lower court in unusual circumstances, where there is a compelling reason not to wait for an appeal from a final judgment. This discretion is exercised very sparingly. It is exercised with somewhat greater frequency, although still sparingly, in the context of discovery disputes involving privileged materials, since a district court order erroneously forcing the disclosure of privileged material may never be remediable through a later appeal.[citation needed] In the case In Re Electronic Privacy Information Center (2013), privacy advocates sought a writ of mandamus directly from the Supreme Court to halt the National Security Agency's bulk phone record collection program. The Supreme Court denied the petition.


Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandamus

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