Mahan v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

39 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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ He is therefore encroaching, though- not strictly and legally trespassing, upon the rights of another. He. enjoys an easement, therefore, in his neighbor’s property, which in time may ripen into a right. But before sufficient time has elapsed to raise a presumption of a grant he has no right, and can maintain no action for being deprived of that easement, let the motive of the deprivation be what it may; and the reason is that in the eye of the law he is not injured. He is'deprived of no right, but only prevented from acquiring a right, without consideration, in his neighbor’s property.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Burke v. Smith

2. “Suppose an obliging farmer permits his neighbor to pass and repass through his fields, to go to the lands of that neighbor; if this is permitted for 20 years, it becomes an easement, a right of way, which the owner of the soil cannot infringe; but at the end of ten years, he chooses . . . to shut up this passage, and refuses permission to his neighbor to pass over his lands, as he used to do for ten years past; does an action lie? Most certainly not.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Pressman v. Krause, No. Cv 93-0350902 (Sep. 12, 1997)