29 Cal. 2d 773 - Bernstein v. Bush’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

40 state decisions

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

1. ““Under the law of this state the landowner has a property right in oil and gas beneath the surface, not in the nature of an absolute title to the oil and gas in place, but as an exclusive right to drill upon his property for these substances. His unqualified and absolute title attaches after the substances have been reduced to possession. (Tanner v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 20 Cal.2d 814, 819 [ 129 P.2d 383 ]; Bandini Petroleum Co. v. Superior Court, supra, 110 Cal.App. 123, 127 [ 293 P. 899 ].) This is a right which is ‘as much entitled to protection as the property itself, and the undue restriction of the use thereof is as much a taking “for constitutional purposes as appropriating or destroying it.” ’ (People v. Associated Oil Co., supra, 211 Cal. [93] at pp. 99-100 [ 294 P. 717 ] and cases cited.) “In Ohio Oil Co. v. Indiana, 177 U.S. 190, at 209 [ 20 S.Ct. 576 , 44 L.Ed. 729 ], involving an oil and gas conservation measure, the Supreme Court said that all (not some) of the surface proprietors within an oil and gas field have the right to reduce to possession the oil and gas beneath the surface, and that they could not be absolutely deprived of that right without a taking of private property. The court went on to consider the owners’ coequal right to take from the common source of supply, observing that one owner should not be permitted to convert an undue proportion of the supply to the detriment of others; hence that from the peculiar nature of the property right, the le”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sindell v. Smutz

2. ““In the absence of statutory prohibition, the right to drill an offset well was commonly resorted to as a means of protection by an owner whose property was being drained by a well drilled on adjoining land. The wasteful use of offset wells was recognized as one of the evils sought to be minimized by the enactment of well spacing regulations. (Croxton v. State, 186 Okla. 249 [ 97 P.2d 11,19 ]; Brown v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 126 Tex. 296 [ 83 S.W.2d 935 , 87 S.W.2d 1069 ].) But since the mere opportunity for voluntary pooling of interests does not afford equal protection within the meaning of the federal and state Constitutions, regulatory provisions which in effect prohibit the drilling of offset wells may amount to a denial of the equal protection of the law and a taking of private property without due process of law. Equal protection is so denied where, as here, the law, in its application at least, does not afford adequate means of protection as a substitute for the right to drill an offset well.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 157 Cal. App. 2d 608 - Braly v. BOARD OF FIRE COMMISSIONERS OF CITY OF LOS ANGELES

3. “the authority of the courts to declare a regulation invalid will be exercised with caution and only when it is clear that the law exceeds the limit of legislative power and infringes upon rights guaranteed by the Constitution.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People v. Duffy