White v. Hughes’s Empirical Analysis
1939
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently August 2021 · most notably Matthews v. Bay Head Improvement Ass'n (1984), 471 So. 2d 1 - Ralph v. City of Daytona Beach (1983)
4 federal appellate · 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 Merchants Transportation Co. v. Daniel · Brickell v. Trammel · German American Lumber Co. v. Brock · State ex rel. Ellis v. Gerbing · Broward v. Mabry
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The primary uses of most of the beaches have always been bathing, recreation, fishing and navigation. Adams v. Elliott, supra; Sallas v. State, supra. These primary uses are subject to lawful regulation by the sovereign state in the interest of the public, and subject to the authority of Congress as to commerce and navigation. The Sovereign state may in the interest of the general welfare authorize the beach or shore to be appropriately used as a public highway. And most of our Florida beaches, when the tide is out, afford marvelously perfect highways, which are obliterated and re-built twice each day by the unseen hand of the Almighty. However, we are of the opinion that such an authorization for highway uses must be subject to a reasonable use of the beach or shore for its primary and long established public purposes, for which the State holds it in trust, and subject to lawful governmental regulations. For the above reasons we hold that the right of the public to use the beach for bathing and recreational purposes is superior to that of the motorists driving automobiles thereon.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The constant enjoyment of this privilege [bathing in salt waters] of thus using the ocean and its fore-shore for ages without dispute should prove sufficient to establish it as an American common law right, similar to that of fishing in the sea, even if this right had not come down to us as a part of the English common law, which it undoubtedly has. [ White v. Hughes, 139 Fla. 54, 59 , 190 So. 446, 449 (1939).]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The State holds the fore-shore in trust for its people for the purposes of navigation, fishing and bathing.”
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.