Steinem v. Romney’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
2 district · 14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently April 2007
2 district · 14 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 Lamprey v. State · Linthicum v. Coan · Goodsell v. Lawson · Waring v. Stinchcomb · Melvin v. Schlessinger
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The reasons usually given for the rule are either that it falls within the maxim de minimis lex non curat, or that, because the riparian owner is liable to lose soil by the action or encroachment of the water, he should also have the benefit of any land gained by the same action. But it seems to us that the rule rests upon a much broader principle, and has a much more important purpose in view, viz: to preserve the fundamental riparian right — on which all others depend, and which often constitutes the principal value of the land — of access to the water. The incalculable mischiefs that would follow if a riparian owner is liable to be cut off from access to the water, and another owner sandwiched in between him and it, whenever the water line had been changed by accretions or relictions, are self evident, and have been frequently animadverted on by the courts.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“To hold that the land involved in this case belonged to the appellants would entirely exclude the appellees from the bay, at least to the extent the land has formed off their shore, and would deprive them of their riparian rights in respect thereto. It would sandwich the appellants between them and the bay, and would not only be in conflict with the rule above laid down, which is generally accepted by the courts of this country ..., but it would deprive the appellees of the right given them by statute to build out in the water in front of their land.”
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.