Nicolas v. Grassle’s Empirical Analysis
1928
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 14 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently July 2009 · most notably Sierra Club v. Hodel (1988), Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. Bureau of Land Management (2005)
5 federal appellate · 14 district · 13 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 Sprague v. Stead
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The defendants cite the rule of statutory construction that all words in a statute must be given effect, and argue that for the grant to be accepted, this rule requires that there be actual ‘construction,’ meaning ‘more than mere use’ of a highway. However, in Colorado, mere use is sufficient. [T]he statute is an express dedication of a right of way for roads over unappropriated government lands, acceptance of which by the public results from ‘use by those for whom it was necessary or convenient.’ It is not required that ‘work’ shall be done on such a road, or that public authorities shall take action in the premises. User is the requisite element, and it may be by any who have occasion to travel over public lands, and if the use be by only one, still it suffices.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The district court ... thought the word ‘construction’ in the congressional grant required' that, to constitute an acceptance, work must be done on the road. We do not think so. The purpose of the act was to give every settler, however unable to build a road, lawful access to whatever land he chose to enter. If access is feasible without work with pick and shovel no such work is necessary, and it would be a mistake to hold that action by any governmental authority is required.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.