Lewis v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1940
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 49 later decisions — most recently October 2017 · most notably Smith v. Baptist Foundation of Oklahoma (2002), Paurley v. Harris (1954)
2 federal appellate · 47 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 Johnson v. Whelan · Midland Valley Railroad Co. v. Imler · Lowndes v. Wicks · Reynolds v. Wall · Rocher v. Williams
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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Where adjoining landowners occupy their respective premises up to a certain fence line which they mutually recognize and acquiesce in for a long period of time, usually the time prescribed by the statute of limitations, they are precluded from claiming that the boundary line thus recognized and acquiesced in is not the true one.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) the division of a unit of land; (2) the running of a fence between the divided portions of the unit deviating from the true line as established by government survey; (3) the continued maintenance of the fence for [the prescriptive period]; and (4) the use by the respective parties of the land lying on their respective sides of the fence only.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ . . . ‘The very reason for requiring a long period of acquiescence in order to establish it at all is that it is deemed somewhat negative in character, and that its inference can be drawn more fairly from a long period of negation than a short one. It is readily conceivable that a person may be dissatisfied, and yet submit and thus acquisce.’ It is sufficient to say that the cases with respect to the period of time during which acquiescence continues sufficient to establish the boundary all agree that it is sufficient if it equals the statute of limitations applicable to title by prescription.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Kinkade v. Simpson
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.