Willey v. Decker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 federal appellate · 3 district · 27 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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Accompanying this view that the law of appropriation rests upon the inapplicability of any other rule are statutes or constitutional provisions expressly declaring that the ownership of 'all waters is in the state (or in the public). ‘In this and other jurisdictions, where the common law in respect to the use of water and the right thereto is altogether ignored, there has been ^established, either by judicial decision or statute, or both, as an essential principle, that the water of all natural streams is the property of the public or of the state.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Murphy v. Kerr

2. ““The right acquired to water by an appropriator under our system is of the same character as that defined by the foregoing authorities as an incorporeal hereditament and easement. The consumer under a ditch possesses a like property. He is an appropriator from the natural stream, through the intermediate agency of the ditch, and has the right to have the quantity of water so appropriated flow in the natural stream, and through the ditch, for his use.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rickey Land & Cattle Co. v. Miller

3. ““That a valid appropriation of water from a natural stream constitutes an easement in the stream, and that such easement is an incorporeal hereditament, the appropriation being in perpetuity, cannot well be disputed.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rickey Land & Cattle Co. v. Miller