Sauer v. City of New York’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 1 district · 113 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 183 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"* * * The right of an owner of land abutting on public highways has been a fruitful source of litigation in the courts of all of the states, and the decisions have been conflicting, and often in the same state irreconcilable in principle. The courts have modified or overruled their own decisions, and each state has in the end fixed and limited, by legislation or judicial decision, the rights of abutting owners in accordance with its own view of the law and public policy. * * *"”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. City of San Antonio v. Pigeonhole Parking of Texas, Inc. · Royal Transit, Inc. v. Village of West Milwaukee

2. ““The doctrine of the courts everywhere, both in England and in this country (unless Ohio and Kentucky are excepted), is that so long as there is no application of the street to purposes other than those of a highway, any establishment or change of grade made lawfully, and not negligently performed, does not impose an additional servitude upon the street, and hence is not within the constitutional inhibition against taking private property without compensation, and is not the basis of an action for damages, unless there be an express statute to that effect. That this is the rule, ... is too well established by the decisions of this court to require the citation of authorities of other jurisdictions.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brown v. State · State v. Patten

3. “The State courts have uniformly held that the erection over a street of an elevated viaduct, intended for general public travel and not devoted to the exclusive use of a private transportation corporation, is a legitimate street improvement equivalent to a change of grade; and that, as in the case of a change of grade, an owner of land abutting on the street is not entitled (absent a statute) to damages for the impairment of access to his land and the lessening of the circulation of light and air over it.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hill-Behan Lumber Co. v. State Highway Commission