Hardin v. Jordan’s Empirical Analysis
140 U.S. 371 · 1891
Citation profile
119 federal appellate · 44 district · 338 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 702 later decisions (77 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2024 · most notably Shively v. Bowlby (1894), Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson (1912)
119 federal appellate · 44 district · 338 state decisions — followed in 39 states
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 John Pollard et al. v. John Hagan et al. · Barney v. Keokuk · Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co. · Merrit Martin v. William C Waddell
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 702 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““. . . It has been the practice of the government from its origin, in disposing of the public lands, to measure the price to be paid for them by the quantity of upland granted, no charge being made for the lands under the bed of the stream, or other body of water. The meander lines run along or near the margin of such waters are run for the purpose of ascertaining the exact quantity of upland to be charged for, and not for the purpose of limiting the title of the grantee to such meander lines. It has frequently been held, both by the federal and state courts, that such meander lines are intended for the purpose of bounding and abutting the lands granted upon the waters whose margins are thus meandered; and that the waters themselves constitute the real boundary.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In our judgment the grants of the government for lands bounded on streams and other waters, without any reservation or restriction of terms, are to be construed as to their effect according to the law of the state in which the lands lie.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Such title being in the state the lands are subject to state regulation and control, under the condition, however, of not interfering with the regulations which may be made by Congress in regard to public navigation and commerce. * * * This right of the states to regulate aud control the shores of tide waters, and the lands under, them, is the same as that which is exercised by the crown in England. In this country the same rule has been extended to our great navigable lakes, which are treated as inland seas; and also, in some of the states, to navigable rivers, as the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ohio, and, in Pennsylvania, to all the permanent rivers of the state; but it depends on the law of each state to what waters and to what extent this prerogative of the state over the lands under water shall be exercised.””
6 later decisions 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.