Spencer v. Bliss’s Empirical Analysis
1955
Citation profile
36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently February 1988 · most notably Ferguson-Steere Motor Co. v. State Corp. Commission (1957), Kelley v. Carlsbad Irrigation District (1963)
36 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 Yarbrough v. Montoya · Harris v. State Corporation Commission · Floeck v. Bureau of Revenue · Manning v. Perry · Farmers Development Co. v. Rayado Land & Irrigation Co.
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.
“[t]he owner of a water right may change the location of his well or change the use of the water, but only upon application to the state engineer and upon showing that the change will not impair existing rights * * *.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage““A case much like the present and relied'upon strongly by the defendant, is Manning v. Perry, 48 Ariz. 425 , 62 P.2d 693, 695 , mentioned next above. It contains language in which we can find little to criticize, if we should be called upon to speak decisively on the question discussed, as we are not in view of the conclusion reached. In that case the Supreme Court of Arizona, without denying the appeal to the district court character as a trial de novo, would decline to overturn the decision of the State Engineer, unless it ‘be without support of the evidence, or is contrary to the evidence, or is the result of fraud or misapplication of the law.’ ****** “We are satisfied we need not here decide just what effect the decision of the State Engineer should be given in the de novo trial provided for the hearing of an appeal. * * * We think we have demonstrated however, it will be an unfortunate day and event when it is established in New Mexico, that the district courts must take over and substitute their judgment for that of the skilled and trained hydrologists of the State Engineer’s office in the administration of so complicated a subject as the underground waters of this state.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Heine v. Reynolds
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.