Werner v. Graham’s Empirical Analysis
1919
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 184 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 192 later decisions — most recently November 2016 · most notably 8 Cal. 4th 361 - Nahrstedt v. Lakeside Village Condominium Assn. (1994), 34 Cal. 2d 442 - Hannula v. Hacienda Homes, Inc. (1949)
6 federal appellate · 2 district · 184 state decisions — followed in 19 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 Sprague v. Kimball · Firth v. Marovich · Berryman v. Hotel Savoy Company · Bacon v. Sandberg · Clapp v. Wilder
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 192 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The situation in this respect is that one, the owner of a tract of land, sells a portion of it, exacting of the grantee restrictive provisions as to its use, but without a word indicating that the land conveyed is part of a larger tract, the balance of which the grantor still retains, or that the restrictions are intended for the benefit of other lands, or that their benefit is to inure to or pass with other lands, and without any description or designation of what is an essential element of any such servitude as is claimed, namely, the land which is to be the dominant tenement. Servitudes running with the land in favor of one parcel and against another cannot be created in any such uncertain and indefinite fashion. It is true, the nature of the restrictions is such that, when considered in connection with the fact that Marshall still retained the greater portion of the tract, it is not improbable that he exacted them for the benefit of the portion so retained. But the grantee’s intent in this respect is necessary, as well as the grantor’s, and the deed which constitutes the ;final and exclusive memorial of their joint intent, has not a word to that effect, nor anything whatever which can be seized upon and given construction as an expression of such intent. If such was their intent it has not been expressed. Omitting, as we must, any consideration of what the understanding was between Marshall and his grantees, except as shown by the instruments between them, and construing”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The enforcement of covenants restricting the use of one parcel of land for the benefit of another parcel, not merely as between the original parties, but as between their respective grantees between whom no privity of estate or of contract can properly be said to exist, originated at a compara lively recent date in the chancery courts and apparently without a clear appreciation of the fact that the enforcement of such covenants for and against grantees of the original parties was, in effect, the creating of servitudes. Such servitudes are frequently spoken of as ‘equitable easements’. They were unknown to the common law and are not among the servitudes enumerated by our code. (Civ. Code, secs. 801, 802.) They are opposed to the rule that the owner of land may not create new and heretofore unknown estates, and while their validity—that is, the enforceable character of such covenants as against grantees of the original parties—is now too well established to admit of question, it has resulted that the covenants which will be so enforced are limited to those which directly concern and benefit what we may term the dominant tenement, and, also, that any provisions of an instrument creating or claimed to create such a servitude will be strictly construed, any doubt being resolved in favor of the free use of the land. ’ ’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““It is undoubted that when the owner of a subdivided tract conveys the various parcels in the tract by deeds containing appropriate language imposing restrictions on each parcel as part of a general plan of restrictions common to all the parcels and designed for their mutual benefit, mutual equitable servitudes are thereby created in favor of each parcel as against all the others. The agreement between the grantor and each grantee in such a case as expressed in the instruments between them is both that the parcel conveyed shall be subject to restrictions in accordance with the plan for the benefit of all the other parcels and also that all other parcels shall be subject to such restrictions for its benefit.””
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.