Brown v. Spilman’s Empirical Analysis
155 U.S. 665 · 1895
Citation profile
21 federal appellate · 3 district · 87 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 138 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2022 · most notably Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co. (1911), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. State of West Virginia State of Ohio (1923)
21 federal appellate · 3 district · 87 state decisions — followed in 18 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 Maxwell Land Grant Co. v. Dawson · Corning v. . Troy Iron and Nail Factory · Stockbridge Iron Co. v. Hudson Iron Co. · James Greenleaf's Lessee v. James Birth
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 138 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Petroleum, gas and oil are substances of a peculiar character. * * * They belong to the owner of land, and are part of it so long as they are part of it or in it or subject to his control; but when they escape and go into other land or come under another's control, the title of the former owner is gone. If an adjoining owner drills his own land and taps a deposit of oil or gas extending under his neighbor's field, so that it comes into his well, it becomes his property.”
8 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.