Costello v. Bowen’s Empirical Analysis
1947
Citation profile
2 district · 26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently April 2015 · most notably United Nuclear Corp. v. General Atomic Co. (1979), 95 Cal. App. 2d 778 - Alonso v. Hills (1950)
2 district · 26 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 Lebrun v. Richards · Los Angeles Cemetery Ass'n v. City of Los Angeles · The Weinberg Co. v. Bixby · Sanguinetti v. Pock · Everett v. Davis
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.
““It is difficult to define the term ‘water course’ in language that is uniformly applicable, since the topography and surrounding conditions which contribute to its existence vary greatly. In general terms it has been said to consist of a running stream of water following a regular course or channel and possessing a bed and banks. [Citing cases.] It is the channel through which the water of a particular district or watershed usually or periodically flows. While it is ordinarily defined as a stream, containing a definite bed, banks and channel, which flows into some other river, stream, lake or the sea, none of those characteristics is an absolute fixed factor. A watercourse may exist even though it serves as a mere channel by means of which a particular watershed is drained, and although it may be dry in certain seasons ...””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Phillips v. Burke““But the drastic rule which allows a property owner to divert such waters to the lands of others only applies to flood waters in the strict sense, that is, waters escaping because of their height from the confinement of a stream and running over adjacent property. Implicit in the definition of flood waters is the element of abnormality; they are flood waters because of their escape from the usual channels under conditions which do not ordinarily occur.” (Italics added.)”
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.