136 W. Va. 569 - McCausland v. Jarrell’s Empirical Analysis
1951
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently December 2004 · most notably 138 W. Va. 166 - Thrasher v. Amere Gas Utilities Co. (1953), Stuart v. Lake Washington Realty Corporation (1956)
33 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 128 W. Va. 198 - Taylor v. Taylor · 130 W. Va. 121 - Bennett v. Neff · Rigney v. Tacoma Light & Water Co. · Jordan v. City of Benwood · 128 W. Va. 290 - Sutton v. Sutton
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It has been said that the argument based on the balance of injury to the defendant avails only in a limited class of cases, and that where comparative injury or inconvenience has resulted in the refusal of injunctive relief, it has been where the complainant's injuries were trivial or uncertain or remediable at law. Certainly, the doctrine does not mean that substantial, certain, and irreparable damages to the complaining party, which might be prevented by injunction, are to be left without remedy because of the fact that greater damages would result to the defendant, a wrongdoer, by issuing the injunction. Where the wrong complained of is wilful, wanton, or unprovoked, the injunction should be granted although the loss to the defendant will be greater than the injury to his adversary from its refusal, for no balancing of the inconveniences of private parties will be indulged when the act complained of is tortious in itself as well as in its incidents, and the preservation of a clear right is involved. In such cases, the wrongdoer is not entitled to the benefit of any consideration in a court of equity, nor can it be said that injury would result from the injunction, for no man can complain that he is injured by being prevented from doing, to the hurt of another, that which he has no right to do.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The obstruction and the improper diversion of the natural flow of the water of the stream on the land of the plaintiff, caused by the acts of the defendants, constituted an infringement of a property right of the plaintiff and, in determining whether injunctive relief against such infringement should be granted, a court of equity should not resort to or apply the doctrine of the balance of equities or conveniences between the parties involved.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The rule adhered to by the English courts and by the courts in many of the states in this country is that a person who diverts or obstructs the natural course of a stream must provide not only for the normal rainfall but for such floods or freshets as may occasionly occur, whether they are called ordinary or extraordinary, though not for unprecedented floods of which the usual course of nature affords no premonition.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.