Leonard v. Buerger’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently November 1987
9 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Yunker v. Nichols · Schilling v. Rominger · Graybill v. Corlett · De Graffenried v. Savage · Rogers v. Lower Clear Creek Ditch Co.
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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“". . . There is no law which forbids one to grant permission to his neighbor to dig an irrigation ditch across his land without first purchasing a right of way and getting a deed to it. When, under such circumstances, the ditch actually is excavated and put into use without objection, or by approval, the owner of land traversed thereby may not thereafter withdraw his consent, deny the right of maintenance or destroy the ditch. Such consent need not even be in writing. Where the ditch has been in existence for any appreciable time, consent to its original construction is presumed."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ ‘Whatever may be the law in other jurisdictions, it is established in this state that where a ditch owner is permitted, without interference, to construct an irrigating ditch over the land of another, and the ditch i[s] put in use, a right of way is thereby acquired and the necessity for condemning, to obtain possession, is obviated.’ ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.