Bartley v. Sone’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently February 1996
4 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 The Texas Co. v. Burkett · Houston & Texas Central Railroad v. East · 21 Tex. Civ. App. 274 - Toyaho Creek Irrigation Co. v. Hutchins · Smith v. Brown Express · Johnson v. Timmons
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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““This rule relating to ownership of water flowing from springs stems from the rule that the owner of land owns the water under the surface, generally referred to by hydrologists as ‘ground water.’ Our statutory law recognizes this principle, although the legislature uses the term ‘underground water,’ rather than ‘ground water.’ Our statutes define ‘underground water’ as ‘water percolating below the surface of the earth and that is suitable for agricultural gardening, domestic or stock raising purposes, but does not include defined subterranean streams or the underflow of rivers.’ Tex.Water Code Ann. § 52.001(3) (1972). The Water Code expressly recognizes ‘the ownership and rights of the owner of the land . in underground water . . .’ Tex. Water Code Ann. § 52.002 (1972). These statutory provisions are but the embodiments of well settled rules relating to the ownership of percolating waters. Houston & T. C. R. v. East, 98 Tex. 146 , 81 S.W. 279 (1904); Anno.: 55 A.L.R. 1385 , 1390-95 (1928).””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“We are unable to say, from the evidence, whether or not the spring, or springs, from these percolating waters, was, or were, of sufficient magnitude to be of any value to riparian proprietors, or added perceptibly to the general volume of water in the bed of the stream, and we therefore assume that they were springs of such character that Burkett plainly had the right to grant access to them and the use of their waters for any purpose. ...”
1 later decision 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.