Fowler v. Wood’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 41 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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The courses of rivers being determined by the operation of the elements according to natural laws, they are subject to changes of location. If the change in the position of a navigable river dividing the territory of two states be by gradual and imperceptible encroachment, or insensible recession, so that the process cannot be detected while it is going on, the boundary follows the shifting thread of the stream. But if from storm or flood or other known violent natural cause there be a sudden visible irruption of the water, whereby the lands upon one side are degraded or submerged or a new channel is cut for the stream, the boundary remains stationary at its former location, and the boundaries of riparian owners whose lands have been affected remain unchanged. These principles are elementary in the law. The books teem with learning upon the subject, and the collation of authorities would be a work of supererogation. (McBride v. Steinweden, 72 Kan. 508 , 83 Pac. 822 .)” (p. 521.) See, also, Wood v. McAlpine, 85 Kan. 657 , 118 Pac. 1060 ; St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U. S. 226 ; Bode v. Rollwitz, 199 Pac. 692 ; The State, ex rel., v. Turner, 111 Kan. 302 , 207 Pac. 223 .)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Craig v. Leonard

2. ““If the space between the mainland and an island be reduced to a slough, which fills up in such a manner that the two bodies of land join, the respective owners will be entitled to the accretions to their shores. If the slough fills up from the bottom, and the accretions do not begin at the sides, the boundary is the center of the slough, as it was before the water left it. Buse v. Russell, 86 Mo. 209 ; Minton v. Steele, 125 Mo. 181 , 28 S. W. 746 . If an island be separated from the mainland by the channel of a river which becomes dry the same rule obtains.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Siddall v. Hudson

3. “[Ijf the change does not come within the definition of gradual and imperceptible, but the land is rapidly washed away on one side and formed on the other, the fiction should give way to the fact, and the owner should not lose title to his property. The title to the land itself is of more importance than the riparian right of access to the water or convenience of having a natural, rather than a mathematical, boundary; and rules which were made for convenience should not be permitted to wrest the title to land from its true owner.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Omaha Indian Tribe v. Wilson