Wright v. Seymour’s Empirical Analysis
1886
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 1990 · most notably Borax Consolidated, Ltd. v. Los Angeles (1935), Phillips Petroleum Company v. Mississippi US (1988)
5 federal appellate · 17 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 Canal Commissioners v. People · Teschemacher v. Thompson · People ex rel. Pierce v. Morrill · Ward v. Mulford · Comm'rs of Canal Fund v. Kempshall
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The contention of appellant that his title is derived from the government of Mexico; that the patent from the United States government was simply a confirmation of preexisting rights under the grant; that at the date of the grant the common law did not exist as a rule of action or decision in California, and consequently that as none of the rights of the patentee conferred by the preceding sovereignty can be divested, — is substantially correct. “But the question remains, what were those rights? “When we answer this question, in the light of the evidence presented by appellant through the patent of his grantor, we are constrained to say that he has failed to show any right to the land in question. * * * “We must assume that the government discharged its obligation to the holder of the Mexican title by receiving proof of its character and the land to which it related; and that, upon confirmation, the patent issued to the claimant is the evidence, and only evidence, of the extent of the grant, and the terms used in such patent relating to extent and boundaries is subject to like rules of construction with other grants from the government. “Had the government found the claimant entitled to the bed and banks of a tide-water stream we must suppose it would have used apt words for its conveyance. Not having done so, the presumption is that it was not intended to convey the bed of the stream.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[e]xcept where the grant under which the land is held indicates a different intent, the owner of the upland, ... when it borders upon a navigable lake or stream, where there is no tide, ... takes to the edge of the lake or stream, at low water mark....”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“declaration of the law ... as it has existed since the formation of our state government.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.