Snow v. Abalos’s Empirical Analysis
1914
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 5 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 73 later decisions — most recently May 2021 · most notably Wilson v. Denver (1998), State Ex Rel. Martinez v. City of Las Vegas (2004)
9 federal appellate · 5 district · 57 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 Elmore v. Drainage Commissioners · Norman v. Corbley · Bradley v. Harkness · Lytle Creek Water Co. v. Perdew · St. Anthony Falls Water-Power Co. v. City of Minneapolis
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 73 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Appellees have cited us to section 62, Black’s Pomeroy on Water Rights, where the author says: ‘Whenever ditches or other structures for diverting or appropriating water belong to two or more proprietors, such owners are, in the absence of special agreements to the contrary, tenants in common of the ditch, and of the water rights connected therewith, and their proprietary rights are governed by the rules of law regulating tenancy in common’ — ■ and also refer to the cases of St. Anthony Falls Water-Power Co. v. City of Minneapolis, 41 Minn. 270 , 43 N. W. 56 ; Bradley v. Harkness, 26 Cal. 69 ; Lytle Creek Water Co. v. Perdew, 65 Cal. 447 , 4 P. 426 . The learned author and the courts, we believe, erroneously consider the water rights attached to the ditch, which of course is owned by the parties constructing it as tenants in common, whereas said water rights are appurtenant to the lands owned in severalty by the parties. The ditch is simply the carrier, or agency employed by the parties, to conduct the water, the right to which is appurtenant to the land, to be irrigated. Suppose, for example, that two farmers each owned a farm; their lands being contiguous. In order to reach their lands they should jointly construct a wagon road to the same. The road would be owned by the parties jointly or as tenants in common. Each would have the right to use the road. The fact that they haul their produce raised on the farm over the wagon road thus constructed would not make them tenants”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Holmberg v. Bradford“New Mexico being in the arid region, the early settlements were established along the banks of perennial rivers, or in the mountain valleys where water from springs and creeks was reasonably certain to be available for irrigation at the needed times. . . . [T]he people built their houses and established their towns and plazas close together, and cultivated the lands in small tracts adjacent to the settlement.... [T]he people by their joint effort would construct an irrigation ditch, sufficiently large to convey water to their lands for the irrigation of crops. Each individual owned and cultivated a specific tract of land, sufficient to provide food for the needs of his family, and from the main ditch laterals were run to the various tracts of land to be watered.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“but it is the application to a beneficial use which gives the continuing right to divert and utilize the water.”
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.