Brown v. Chadbourne’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 2 district · 21 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The true rule is that the public have a right of way in every stream which is capable, in its natural state and its ordinary volume of water, of transporting, in a condition tit for market, the products of the forests or mines, or of the tillage of the soil upon its banks. » * * Nor is it essential to the easement that the capacity of the stream, as above defined, should be continuous, or, in other words, that its ordinary state, at all seasons of the year, should be such as to make It navigable. If It is ordinarily subject to periodical fluctuations in the volume and height of its water, attributable to natural canses, and recurring as regularly as the seasons, and if its periods of high water or navigable capacity ordinarily continue a sufficient length of time to make it useful as a highway, It is subject to the public easement.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States

2. ““A distinguishing criterion consists in the fitness to answer the wants of those, whose business require its use. Its perfect adaptation to such use may not exist at all times, although the right to it may continue, and be exercised whenever an opportunity occurs. In many rivers, where the tide ebbs and flows, the public are deprived of their use for navigation during the reflux of their waters. A way, over which one has a right to pass, may be periodically covered with water. In high northern latitudes, most fresh water rivers are frozen over during- several months of the year.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States

3. ““ To be applied in such cases is, whether a stream is inherently and in its nature, capable of being used for the purposes of commerce, for the floating of vessels, boats, rafts, or logs. When a stream possesses such a character, then the easement exists, leaving to the owners of the bed all other modes of use not inconsistent with it.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. People ex rel. Bird v. Grand Rapids-Muskegon Power Co.