Horne v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
159 U.S. 40 · 1895
Citation profile
45 federal appellate · 27 district · 81 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 186 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2023 · most notably Scott v. Lattig (1913), George Whitaker v. Thomas McBride (1905)
45 federal appellate · 27 district · 81 state decisions — followed in 15 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 Hardin v. Jordan · Railroad Company v. Schurmeir · Russell v. Maxwell Land Grant Co. · Stoneroad v. Stoneroad
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 186 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Although it was unsurveyed, it does not follow that a patent for the surveyed tract adjoining carries with it the land which perhaps ought to have been, but which was not in fact, surveyed. The patent conveys only .the land which is surveyed, and when it is clear from the plat and the surveys that the tract surveyed terminated at a particular body of water, the patent carries no land beyond it.” 159 U. S. 45 , 15 Sup. Ct. 990 , 40 L. Ed. 68 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““But Ihe question in this case is whether the boundary of these lots is the bayou or the main body of the river. That a water line runs along the course of ¡he meander line cannot", of course, in the face of the plat and survey, be questioned; but that the meander line of the plat is the water line of the bayou, rather than that oí the main body of the river, is evident from these facts: In ihe first place, the area of the lots is given, and, -when that area is stated to be 170 acres, it is obvious that no survey was intended of over 700 acres. In the second place, the meander line, as shown on the plat, Is, so far as these lots are concerned, wholly within the east half of sections 23 and 2.6, while the water line of the main body of the river is a mile or a mile and a quarter west thereof, in sections 22 and 27. Again, the distance from the east lino of the section to the meander line is given, which is less than a quarter of a mile, while the distance from such east line to the main body of the river must be in the neighborhood of a mile and a half. Further, the description in the patent is of certain lots in sections 23 and 2(5, and, manifestly, that was not intended to include land in sections 22 and 27. These considerations are conclusive that the water line, which was surveyed and made the boundary line of the lots, was the water line of the bayou or savannah, apd there has been simply an omission to make any survey of the tract west of the bayou, and between It and th”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““Along tlie course of this meander line, as shown on the plat, runs, according to the testimony, a bayou or savannah, opening into the Indian river, and west of this bayou, and between it and the main waters of the river, is a body of land, extending a distance of a mile or a mile and a quarter, and amounting to some <500 acres. This is a body of low land, in some places, however, from four to six feet above the level of the river, and covered with a growth of live oak trees, many of them three and lour feet in diameter. It was not land formed by accretion since ¡he surrey.””
1 later decision 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.