Ellinghouse v. Taylor’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 2 district · 14 state decisions

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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““What real distinction is there, so far as the term ‘public use’ is concerned, between the benefit that results to a state from the reclamation by artificial irrigation of ICO acres of agricultural land owned by one or two persons and the reclamation by the same means of thousands of acres, owned by many different persons living together in one subdivision of the state. We do not think there is any in principle. The reclamation of one small field by means of artificial irrigation promotes development and adds to the taxable wealth of the state, as well as the reclamation by the same means of a number of fields.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Eastern Oregon Land Co. v. Willow River Land & Irrigation Co.

2. ““Persons have been allowed the right of eminent domain, on the theory of a public use, in the construction of dams for the operation of grist and sawmills, in the reclamation of swamp lands, and in other similar instances that might be enumerated, where the public had no direct interest in these operations, whose main end was mere private gain, and where the benefit to the people at large could result indirectly and incidentally only from the increase of wealth and the development of natural resources.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Eastern Oregon Land Co. v. Willow River Land & Irrigation Co.