Comstock v. Ramsay’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 1 district · 27 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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““We do not hold that there can be no independent appropriation of seepage, return and spring waters; but on the contrary, where such appropriation does not interfere with a prior right, that it may be done upon facts and conditions which warrant it. What and all we do intend to here determine, on this particular point, is that where it appears that such waters are in fact tributary to the stream, and form a substantial and material source of its supply, upon which appropriators therefrom have long depended for water to satisfy their priorities, that then, as between such bona fide appropriators and users of such waters and a new claimant, the former has the first and better right.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Trowell Land & Irrigation Co. v. Bijou Irrigation District · Fort Morgan Reservoir & Irrigation Co. v. McCune

2. ““There is no law anywhere to support the contention that if these waters are naturally tributary to the river, still they may be taken by a new claimant to the damage and injury of prior appropriates upon that stream, simply because he captures and diverts them before they actually get into the river channel. If such act of capture and diversion can be upheld as lawful and proper, by the same reasoning a new claimant could divert the waters of a surface tributary, if he only be spry enough to capture and divert them before they actually reach and mingle with the waters of the main stream.” •”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. German Ditch & Reservoir Co. v. Platte Valley Irrigation Co.

3. ““Every appropriation of water on this stream, claimed and decreed for irrigation purposes, has been so claimed and decreed upon the theory that all waste and seepage water arising from the irrigation of land, or from the construction and maintenance of reservoirs using water from the river, and naturally returning to it, is available to supply such appropriations and decrees.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Trowell Land & Irrigation Co. v. Bijou Irrigation District