43 Wash. 2d 36 - Sund v. Keating’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions — most recently September 2010 · most notably 70 Wash. 2d 915 - Sigman v. Stevens-Norton, Inc. (1967), Tiegs v. Watts (1998)
3 federal appellate · 20 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 Cass v. Dicks · Harvey v. Northern Pacific Railway Co. · O'Connell v. East Tenn., Va. & Ga. Railway Co. · Morton v. Hines · Noyes v. Cosselman
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In none of these cases have we decided whether flood waters, still remaining within the confines of the flood channel of a stream, are an integral part of the watercourse and governed by the laws relating to riparian rights, or whether they are surface waters. If the law of riparian rights governs here, then one of the rights of respondents, as a riparian owner, was to have the water of Clark Creek continue to flow in its natural course. As a corollary of this right, appellants, either intentionally or negligently, could not divert the course of the stream. II Farnham, Waters and Water Rights, 1634-1637, §§ 489-490. And, if appellants so negligently excavated near the bank of a stream that flood waters of the stream caused it to change its course, then appellants are liable.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Every stream flowing through a country subject to a changeable climate must have periods of high and low water. And it must have, not only its ordinary channel which carries the water in ordinary times, but it must have, also, its flood channel to accommodate the water when additional quantities find their way into the stream. The flood channel of the stream is as much a natural part of it as is the ordinary channel. It is provided by nature, and it is necessary to the safe discharge of the volume of water. With this flood channel no one is permitted to interfere to the injury of other riparian owners. . . . Thus, the courts are very nearly agreed that the flood channel must be considered as a part of the channel of the stream, and that no structures or obstructions of any kind can be placed in its bed which will have a tendency to dam the water back upon the property of the upper riparian owner."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[cease] to possess the characteristics of diffused or vagrant surface waters and become part of the stream....”
2 later decisions 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.