252 Pa. Super. 257 - Burns v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably 376 Pa. Super. 260 - Niles v. Fall Creek Hunting Club, Inc. (1988), 370 Pa. Super. 584 - Wittig v. Carlacci (1988)
25 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 Parks v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co. · Dimura v. Williams · Sloan v. Sloan · Johns v. Johns · Conneaut Lake Park, Inc. v. Klingensmith
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is true that some jurisdictions ‘hold that the possessor’s mistaken belief in his ownership negatives the existence of a necessary hostile intent____ These jurisdictions identify hostility with the common-law tort of disseisin, i.e., forcible ouster. The theory is that one who does not know he is in possession of another’s land cannot harbor the specific intent to oust the other out of his land.’ Note, A Reevaluation of Adverse Possession as Applied in Boundary Dispute Litigation, Rutgers-Camden L.J. 293, 299 (1971). But most jurisdictions ‘deem the animus of the possessor irrelevant. Rather, they look to the actual physical facts of the possession to determine if such circumstances of notoriety exist so that the true owner is put on notice. They represent a belief that the nature of the possession alone is what is important and that a sufficiently notorious possession will always be enough to alert the owner. Therefore, the hostility is implied if all other elements have been established.’ Id. at 298. See also Annot., 80 A.L.R.2d 1171 (1961). Pennsylvania follows the majority view. See, e.g., Dimura v. Williams, 446 Pa. 316 , 286 A.2d 370 (1972); Adams v. Tamaqua Underwear Co., 105 Pa.Super. 339 , 161 A. 416 (1932).”
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.