Lyons v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““This plaintiff asks damages because the government has limited the effects of a freshet; and this on the ground that, while freshets are generally injurious and their prevention a benelit, in his case the reverse is true, as they cover his land with sand washed away from some one else's property higher up on the stream, and from the sale of this sand he derives a profit. * * * The projected Rock Creek Park and Zoological Gardens are to be laid out at no great distance above plaintiff’s property. It is not impirobable that in the course of the preparation of these improvements for public use the stream may be walled in or otherwise confined more strictly to its bed, and that the banks will be so protected as, if possible, to prevent washing. Would a riparian owner below find in such work a valid ground for claiming damages because deposits of sand were no longer made upon his land in time of freshet? So the deepening of the stream below plaintiff by a neighbor desirous of protecting his own land would tend to quicken the current above and carry the sand by plaintiff while held in suspension. There are many elements of uncertainty in a claim of this description. Its value depends upon the- accidents of nature, upon the legitimate and proper use of the stream both above and below plaintiff, and the natural use of their land by riparian owners above him, and we are of opinion that the use by the government of the stream does not injure plaintiff in any tangible property right.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cohen v. United States