Weber v. The Board of Harbor Commissioners’s Empirical Analysis
85 U.S. 57 · 1873
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 17 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 221 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2012 · most notably Block v. North Dakota Board of University and School Lands North Dakota Board of University and School Lands (1983), Shively v. Bowlby (1894)
44 federal appellate · 17 district · 57 state decisions — followed in 20 states
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 Leffingwell v. Warren · The Star of Hope
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 221 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Although the title to the soil under the tidewaters of the bay was acquired by the United States by cession from Mexico, equally with the title to the upland, they held it only in trust for the future state. Upon the admission of California into the Union upon equal footing with the original, states, absolute property in, and dominion and sovereignty over, all soils under the tidewaters within her limits passed to the state, with the consequent right to dispose of the title to any part of said soils in such manner as she might deem proper, subject only to the paramount right of navigation over the waters, so far as such navigation might be required by the necessities of commerce with foreign nations or among the several states, the' regulation of which was vested in the general government.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Any erection thereon without license is, therefore, deemed an encroachment upon thé property of the sovereign, or, as it is termed in the language of the law, a ‘purpresture,’ which he may remove at pleasure, whether it tend to obstruct navigation or otherwise.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]here lands are held by the State simply for sale or other disposition, and not as sovereign in trust for the public, there is some reason in requiring the assertion of her rights within a limited period,”
3 later decisions 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.