Sargent v. Gagne’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

32 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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “I ... do freely give, grant, sell, convey and confirm unto the said F. Guy Smith and his heirs and assigns forever, a certain piece of land and Spring in Woodstock in the County of Windsor and State of Vermont, described as follows, viz: A Spring and the water thereof and therein, located at the foot of the hill on the Grantor’s Meadow in West Woodstock eight (8) feet westerly of the division fence between land of the Grantor and land of Marble and Southerly of and opposite to a point in said Marble’s part of said fence twenty one (21) feet Northerly of the point of the division of said fence, together with the sufficient land around said Spring as may be necessary to use in preserving, maintaining and repairing the well or reservoir, now built around said Spring, and the right to maintain, repair, and relay when necessary the aqueduct or pipe now laid through the land of the Grantor from said Spring to premises of the said F. Guy Smith, doing no unnecessary damage and paying for such unavoidable damage as may be occasioned in repairing and maintaining said well or reservoir and water pipe therefrom — Also the right in case said Spring should hereafter fail to supply as much water as it now does, to take, dig out, and fit up with a proper well or reservoir about the same, and connect with the first above described Spring and aqueduct and other Spring in the vicinity of said first mentioned Spring, with the same right to improve, maintain and use the same in all respect[s] as ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Roy v. Woodstock Community Trust, Inc.

2. “that a way, once located, cannot be changed thereafter without the mutual consent of the owners of the dominant and servient estates.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Carlson v. Clark