Case Title: State, Bd. of Land Com'rs v. Lonesome Fox Corp.

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1986-02-25T00:00:00Z

Document:
State, Bd. of Land Com'rs v. Lonesome Fox Corp.1986 WY 47714 P.2d 783Case Number: 84-164Decided: 02/25/1986Supreme Court of Wyoming
The 
STATE of Wyoming, BOARD OF LAND COMMISSIONERS, Petitioner,

 
 
v.

 
 
LONESOME 
FOX CORPORATION, Contestant-Respondent, and The Wyoming State Board of Control, 
Respondent

 
 

Thomas, 
CJ, and Brown,* 
Cardine, Urbigkit* 
and Macy, JJ. Richard V. Thomas, Chief Justice.

 
 
*Justices 
Brown and Urbigkit would grant the Petition for Clarification and Correction of 
Opinion and the Petition for Reconsideration of Lonesome Fox Corporation. See 
attached dissent.

 
 
ORDER 
DENYING PETITION FOR CLARIFICATION AND CORRECTION OF OPINION AND PETITION FOR 
RECONSIDERATION OF LONESOME FOX CORPORATION

 
 
[¶1.]     This case came on 
before the court upon the Petition for Clarification and Correction of Opinion 
filed herein by the State Board of Control and the Petition for Reconsideration 
of Lonesome Fox Corporation, and the court, having reviewed the file and record 
of the court and being fully advised in the premises, finds that the Petition 
for Clarification and Correction of Opinion and the Petition for Reconsideration 
of Lonesome Fox Corporation should be denied, and it therefore 
is

 
 
[¶2.]     ORDERED that the 
Petition for Clarification and Correction of Opinion filed herein on behalf of 
the State Board of Control and the Petition for Reconsideration of Lonesome Fox 
Corporation be, and the same hereby are, denied. 

 
 
URBIGKIT, 
Justice, dissenting, with whom BROWN, Justice, joins.

 
 
[¶3.]     I respectfully dissent 
from the order of the Court denying the Petition for Clarification and 
Correction of Opinion filed herein by the State Board of Control and the 
Petition for Reconsideration filed by Lonesome Fox 
Corporation.

 
 
[¶4.]     Although I did not 
participate in the original argument or filed decision, the seriousness of the 
intrinsic question raised requires my response in consideration of the motions 
presently before this Court.

 
 
[¶5.]     The immediate 
contention asserted by the post-opinion petition and motion is the accuracy of 
the stated facts as found in this Court's formal opinion in this case, which 
came for decision by certification from the District Court following entry of an 
order by the Wyoming State Board of Control after its factual hearing on a 
contested water rights abandonment controversy.

 
 
[¶6.]     Original petitioner 
(appellant), as the State of Wyoming constituting the landowner of the involved 
real estate and the owner of the water right subject to abandonment, is not 
involved in these petitions for reconsideration and correction, but the other 
parties litigant, namely, the State Board of Control as a state governmental 
agency, the case designated respondent, and Lonesome Fox Corporation as the 
contestant, separately submitted the rehearing requests.

 
 
[¶7.]     Both respondent and 
contestant assert that the decision of this Court misstated the facts in its 
opinion, and the State Board of Control avers that the standing issue upon which 
the decision was premised contemplates facts wherein "the Court states the facts 
of the case * * * * in the form of two assumptions, the second of which is 
totally incorrect," and "which in part are a physical 
impossibility."

 
 
[¶8.]     Lonesome Fox further 
said:

 

"There 
is no evidence in the case, and no finding of fact, that the detriment to 
Lonesome Fox will come from depriving it of excess water. The injury comes 
directly from deprivation of water that it has the authority to divert, subject 
to being in priority, under its lawful permits."

[¶9.]     We must remember that 
this review came to the Supreme Court from an order of the Wyoming State Board 
of Control, which noted no factual disputes on the standing issue, and none were 
consequently discovered by appellate briefing.

 
 
[¶10.]  The anomaly of the case was reflected in 
a comment in the answer brief of the State Board of 
Control:

 

"The 
Office of the Attorney General has been informed that the Contestant's private 
attorney will not be submitting a brief due to the financial concerns of his 
client. We therefore have the Board of Land Commissioners raising two 
jurisdictional defenses through its appointed attorneys, and the State Board of 
Control presenting the other side of the arguments through its appointed 
attorney, with all attorneys appearing before the Court being employed by the 
State of Wyoming."

 

(Actually, 
a brief was filed by Lonesome Fox Corporation as 
Respondent.)

 
 
[¶11.]  Factually, by my review of the order of 
the State Board of Control from which this proceeding arose, consideration of 
filed material included in the record as part of that proceeding, and evaluation 
of the briefs filed by the State of Wyoming in behalf of the Board of Land 
Commissioners and by the State of Wyoming in behalf of the Wyoming State Board 
of Control, I fail to find a basis to accept as documented the assumption of the 
opinion:

 

"* 
* * * for purposes of this opinion, that the water in issue here was in excess 
of contestant's appropriation but was in fact applied to the lands of the 
contestant during the five years in question." State of Wyoming, Board of 
Land Commissioners v. Lonesome Fox Corporation, Wyo., 707 P.2d 167, 168 
(1985).

 
 
[¶12.]  A careful reading of the hearing 
testimony in conjunction with the voluminous exhibits, and consideration of the 
respective briefs as filed with the State Board of Control prehearing, are both 
interesting and informative. May it suffice to say that the effort affords no 
support for the questioned opinion's factual assumption. To the contrary, 
adverse cross-examination answers resulting from petitioner as owner questioning 
a witness of contestant, as well as statements of contestant in its brief which 
were admitted by contestee (petitioner) in its brief, support the decision of 
the Board of Control, and the factual contentions addressed by the present 
petition for reconsideration.

 
 
[¶13.]  An informed agriculturalist with 
irrigating experience would at the minimum "gulp" at a derived conclusion from 
the hearing evidence that no "existing Lonesome Fox water right would be 
abridged in the event abandonment was not declared," 707 P.2d  at 172, whereby 
the State section water use would be reinstituted.

 
 
[¶14.]  The factual and practical issue included 
in the heavily litigated Board hearing was whether the requisite abandonment 
time existed and not particularly at issue was any appropriated right water 
usage by Lonesome Fox.

 
 
[¶15.]  Since all record documentation appears to 
be contrary to the opinion's factual assumption, this writer has cause to wonder 
whether the opinion of the Court would have been the same if a different 
assumption or determination of the intrinsic nature of the water-right conflict 
had been incorporated in the decisional process. The case may be subject to 
categorization as a hypothetical analysis on an assumed factual 
status.

 
 
[¶16.]  It is not really subject to question from 
the record available that Lonesome Fox had a valid junior appropriation upon 
which the water not used on the State's section was both included and utilized 
for the junior appropriator's lands by virtue of diversion and 
replacement.

 

"In 
this case the Contestant has been using the water in the Rock Creek Drainage 
during the past five years under the authority of its junior water rights for 
the McQuay Ditches, Permit Nos. 15836, 15837, 4697 Enl., which was available to 
the Contestee." Conclusion of Law No. 2, State Board of Control's order dated 
March 15, 1984.

 
 
[¶17.]  It is noteworthy to remember that this 
Court does not undertake to retry the facts after an agency decision which is 
certified by the District Court to this Court without independent hearing. 
Illustrative on the agency authority question is our most recent case of 
State v. Weisz & Sons, Inc., 713 P.2d 176 
(1986).

 
 
[¶18.]  The unusual nature of this dissent at 
this juncture is well recognized. However, the importance of the issue, as well 
as the philosophic concern, is perceived as justification. Text writers advising 
jurists on the science of appellate court brief writing stress the primary 
importance of factual accuracy in composition detail. It is said that the law 
belongs to the courts, but the facts belong to the 
litigants.

 
 
[¶19.]  As this writer, as a new member of the 
Court, now comes to be involved in a decision on a filed petition for rehearing 
and correction, it is respectfully suggested that the motion should be granted 
so that the factual foundation is properly established in order that a viable 
precedent on the issue intended to be submitted will consequently 
result.

 
 
[¶20.]  Another thought occurs as we now come to 
this case in 1986, with two new members on the Court and a presently 
determinative statute, § 41-3-401, W.S.1977, as amended by Ch. 203, S.L. of 
Wyoming 1985, in effect since May 23, 1985.

 
 
[¶21.]  Somewhere in the standing denial cases, 
Cremer v. State Board of Control, Wyo., 675 P.2d 250 (1984); Platte 
County Grazing Association v. State Board of Control, Wyo., 675 P.2d 1279 
(1984); and the most recently determined Laramie Rivers Company v. Wheatland 
Irrigation District, Wyo., 708 P.2d 20 (1985), historical perspective, the 
constitutional status of the Board of Control, Art. 8, § 2 of the Wyoming 
Constitution, and a reasonable definition of standing seem to be severely 
constrained.

 
 
[¶22.]  My concern at this juncture is that, even 
with the most recent legislative effort to repeal Cremer and Platte County 
Grazing Association, a factual utilization of this fourth case may indicate 
an effort for present judicial repeal of that last legislative 
action.

 
 
[¶23.]  I read with thoughtfulness the current 
critique of the Wyoming cases, Note, Water Law--Standing Requirement Under 
the Wyoming Forfeiture Statute, XIX Land & Water L.Rev. 485 (1984), and 
would wonder if Lonesome Fox, now again revisited by this case, is additionally 
unfortunate.

 
 
[¶24.]  I would grant the rehearing to review and 
reconsider and at least seek an opinion based upon the factual status as this 
case actually came to this Court by certification. This Court should grant the 
motion for rehearing and reschedule the case in the normal appellate process to 
accommodate consideration by present members of the 
Court.