153 W. Va. 613 - Somerville v. Jacobs’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently March 2016 · most notably 164 W. Va. 301 - Burns v. Goff (1980), Bright
6 federal appellate · 24 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 Schleicher v. Schleicher · Williamson v. Jones · Beacon Homes, Inc. v. Holt · 118 W. Va. 308 - Spradling v. Spradling · Lagger v. Mutual Union Loan & Building Ass'n
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.
“"To prevent such unjust enrichment... and to do equity between the parties, this Court holds that an improver of land owned by another, who through a reasonable mistake of fact and in good faith erects a building entirely upon the land of the owner, with reasonable belief that such land was owned by the improver, is entitled to recover the value of the improvements from the landowner and to a lien upon such property which may be sold to enforce the payment of such lien, or, in the alternative, to purchase the land so improved upon payment to the landowner of the value of the land less the improvements and such landowner, even though free from any inequitable conduct in connection with the construction of the building upon his land, who, however, retains but refuses to pay for the improvements, must, within a reasonable time, either pay the improver the amount by which the value of his land has been improved or convey such land to the improver upon the payment by the improver to the landowner of the value of the land without the improvements."”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“if the [Jacobses] retain the building and refuse to pay any sum as compensation to the [Somervilles] they will be unjustly enriched in the amount of $17,500.00, the agreed value of the building, which is more than eight and one-half times the agreed $2,000.00 value of the- lot of the [Jacobses] on which it is locatedf.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[I]t is manifest that equity has jurisdiction to, and will, grant relief to one who, through a reasonable mistake of fact and in good faith, places permanent improvements upon land of another, with reason to believe that the land so improved is that of the one who makes the improvements^]”
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.