United States v. Kansas City Life Insurance’s Empirical Analysis
339 U.S. 799 · 1950
Citation profile
116 federal appellate · 28 district · 28 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 369 later decisions (33 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2018 · most notably Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp. (1982), United States v. Winstar Corp. (1996)
116 federal appellate · 28 district · 28 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 United States v. Causby · United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co. · United States v. Cress · United States v. Arthur Lynah · Pumpelly v. Green Bay Co.
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 369 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It would be incongruous to deny compensation to owners adjacent to navigable rivers and require it for others bordering their tributaries for like injuries caused by the single act of lifting the river’s mean level to the high-water mark. Because water seeks its own level, raising the level of the river necessarily raises that of the tributary at their conjunction and as far upstream on each as the effects of the lifting may go. These facts are equally apparent to both types of owners. We think they should be anticipated by both, and that the one has no more power to obstruct or burden the power of Congress in its control of the river’s bed in the interest of navigation than the other. Neither has any greater right to have the river flow in its natural state than the other. ( 339 U.S. at 812 , 70 S.Ct. at 893 )”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“‘Whether the prevention of the use of the land for agricultural purposes was due to its invasion by water from above or from below, it was equally effective. The destruction of land value, without some actual invasion of the land and solely by preventing the escape of its own surface water, is not before us.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]hen the Government exercises [the navigational] servitude, it is exercising its paramount power in the interest of navigation, rather than taking the private property of anyone.”
2 later decisions 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.