Smith v. Denniff’s Empirical Analysis
1900
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 4 district · 56 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 81 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2024 · most notably State of Wyoming v. State of Colorado (1922), Bailey v. Tintinger (1912)
16 federal appellate · 4 district · 56 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 Nevada Ditch Co. v. Bennett · Alta Land & Water Co. v. Hancock · Wyatt v. Larimer & Weld Irrigation Co. · Philbrick v. Ewing · McDonald v. Lannen
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 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The legal title to the land upon which a water right acquired by appropriation made on the public domain [emphasis added] is used or intended to be used in no wise affects the appropriators title to the water right, for the bona fide [emphasis in original] intention which is required of an appropriator to apply the water to some useful purpose may comprehend a use upon lands and possessions other than those of the appropriator, or a use for purposes other than those for which the right was originally appropriated.”
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.