DeWitt v. Stevens’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 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. “"The obvious purpose of the statute is to provide a means whereby a landowner, enclosed on all sides by lands of others and unable to get to his land from a public road or highway, can get relief by condemning a right of way to it across intervening land. However, if such landowner already has a reasonably adequate way to and from his land, there is no field of operation for the statute. On the other hand, if there is no reasonably adequate means of access he may acquire, as provided in the statute, `a convenient right of way not exceeding in width fifteen feet over the lands intervening and lying between such tract or body of land and the public road nearest or most convenient thereto.' But the fact that a presently existing means of access is not as desirable to the landowner as another route would be is not the test. If an existing access is reasonably adequate for the purpose of giving the landowner an outlet to a public road or highway, there is no basis under the statute for condemning another outlet across the intervening land. One owner of a tract of land may consider an access road best for his purposes and a later owner of the same land, for his purposes, might consider another route more desirable and convenient. Thus, it can be seen that if the convenience of the owner were the test, the land of an intervening owner might well be burdened with several rights of way across it, the number varying in proportion to the different uses to which the several successive ow”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wright v. Tallant · 772 So. 2d 1117 - Ex Parte Cater

2. “Under the ore tenus rule, the trial court's decision, 'where supported by the evidence, is presumed correct and should be reversed only if the judgment is found to be plainly and palpably wrong, after a consideration of all of the evidence and after making all inferences that can logically be drawn from the evidence.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 640 So. 2d 933 - Sanders v. Flournoy

3. “`as a matter of mere convenience or as a mere matter of saving expense[; instead,] [t]here must be real necessity before private property can be invaded by a citizen for private purposes.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 772 So. 2d 1117 - Ex Parte Cater