Schultz v. Bower’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““* * * The right of lateral support from the adjacent soil is an absolute right of property; and, as a consequence of this principle, it follows that for any injury to his soil, resulting from the removal of the natural support to which it is entitled, by means of excavation on an adjoining tract, the owner has a legal remedy against the party by whom the mischief has been done. This does not depend upon negligence, but upon the violation of the right of property. [Cases cited.] This unqualified or absolute right of lateral support applies only to the land itself, and not to the buildings or other artificial structures. Where one, by digging in his own land, causes the adjoining land of another to fall, the actionable wrong is not the excavation, but the act of allowing the other’s land to fall. Sedg. Dam. § 925. “Hence the measure of damages is the diminution of the value of the land by reason of the falling of the soil; and it is immaterial whether this falling be called ‘caving’ or ‘washing,’ provided it is the natural and proximate result of removing the lateral support.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brewitz v. City of St. Paul · Kansas City Northwestern Railroad v. Schwake