Johnson v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1961
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently October 2010
2 federal appellate · 11 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 Smith v. City of Greenville · Hinson v. A. T. Sistare Construction Co. · Forest Land Co. v. BLACK · Richardson v. Register · Hall v. WALTERS
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is no allegation that there was “a stream usually flowing in a particular direction,” nor is there any allegation that the water obstructed flowed “in a definite channel, having a bed, sides or bank,” nor is there any allegation that there was “any well-defined bed or channel, with banks,” through which the water obstructed was accustomed to flow; and this, as said, “is essential to the existence of a water course.” Indeed, there is not a single fact alleged from which an inference could be reasonably drawn that the water in question was the water of a natural water course. On the contrary, the irresistible inference from the facts stated in the complaint is that the water obstructed was nothing but surface water, which was drained from plaintiffs land by the ditch, — a mere artificial channel. No lapse of time could invest such a channel with the characteristics of a natural water course.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“On the other hand, it is well settled that a landowner has no right to obstruct the flow of water in a natural watercourse so as to back it up on the lands of an adjoining landowner to his damage.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“... was not required to show actual monetary loss in order to maintain her action.”
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.