Gustafson v. Hamm’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 7 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “•‘That the construction and operation of any ordinary commercial railroad on a street is the imposition of an additional servitude, and amounts to a perversion of the street to a use for which it was not intended, which the state or municipality cannot, as against private rights,» authorize, the decisions of this court: are explicit. Carli v. Stillwater Street Ry. & T. Co., 28 Minn. 373 , 10 N. W. 205 [ 41 Am. Rep. 290 ]; Adams v. Chicago, B. & N. R. Co., 39 Minn. 286 , 39 N. W. 629 [ 1 L. R. A. 493 , 12 Am. St. Rep. 644 ]. * * * It is the settled doctrine of this court that the owner of a lot abutting on a public street has, as appurtenant to the lot, and independently of the ownership of the fee in the street, an easement in the street, to its full width, in front of his lot, for the purposes of access, light, and air, which constitutes property. Adams v. Chicago, B. & N. R. Co., 39 Minn. 286 , 39 N. W. 629 [ 1 L. R. A. 286 , 12 Am. St. Rep. 644 ]; Lamm v. Chicago, St. P., M. & O. Ry. Co., 45 Minn. 71 , 47 N. W. 455 [ 10 L. R. A. 268 ]. The act of defendant in maintaining and operating this track on any part of the street, to its full width, in front of plaintiff’s premises, so as to pollute the air, and depreciate tlieir value, was, if not a trespass, at, least a nuisance, which amounted to a positive invasion upon pla inti it’s private property rights, and for which he may maintain a private action.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Minneapolis, St. P., R. & D. Electric Traction Co. v. Searle