Norcross v. Griffiths’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 26 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Under the rule established by this court as well as of other courts cited below, the important fact in the conveyance which raised the presumption of an intent to convey the bed of a navigable stream, or the street or highway, in front of the land conveyed, is that the side of the street or highway, or the bank of the navigable stream, is in fact the boundary on the side of the lands described in the deed next to such street or stream, or that such side of the street or bank of the stream is included within the boundaries mentioned in the deed on the side next thereto, although the line of the tract as described in the deed may extend beyond the side of the street or bank of the river into the street or river. The fact that the line of the tract of land conveyed as described in the deed is a straight line from point to point, by course and distance, on the side next the river or street, and that no mention is made of the river or street, does not of itself overcome the presumption of an intent to convey to the center of the river or street, if such a line be in fact substantially coincident with the side of the street or the bank of the river, and extends to or into such river or street.” (Citing a large array of authorities.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cross v. Talbot

2. ““The rule itself is mainly one of policy, and one which, to the unprofessional, might not seem of the first importance; but it is at the same time one which the American courts especially have regarded as attended with very serious consequences when not rigidly adhered to, and its chief object is to prevent the existence of innumerable strips and gores of land along the margins of streams and highways, to which the title for generations shall remain in abeyance, and then upon the happening of some unexpected event, and one consequently not in express terms provided for in the title deed, a bootless, almost objectless, litigation shall spring* up to vex and harass those who in good faith had supposed themselves secure from such embarrassment.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cross v. Talbot

3. ““The plaintiff being* the owner of all the land to the river, and not stopping* at the meander line as his boundary, at the time of his conveyance to Fletcher, must be presumed to have conveyed, and to have intended so to do, as he himself held, and according* to his true boundary on that side, unless the deed, by clear and unmistakable words, evinces a contrary intention, and a design to make the meander line a new boundary in the direction toward the river.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cross v. Talbot