Title: Hooker v. Village of Hatch

State: new-mexico

Issuer: New Mexico Supreme Court

Document:

344 P.2d 699 (1959) 66 N.M. 184 Jeff HOOKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VILLAGE OF HATCH, a Municipal Corporation, Defendant-Appellee. No. 6546. Supreme Court of New Mexico. September 4, 1959. Rehearing Denied October 20, 1959. Darden, Caffey & Mechem, Mary Simpson Goggin, Las Cruces, for appellant. *700 Garland & Martin, Las Cruces, for appellee. McGHEE, Justice. The Village of Hatch desires to furnish natural gas to its citizens under the authority of § 14-39-32, N.M.S.A. 1953, and in order to do so it will be necessary to lay a pipeline from a point near Las Cruces northerly to the village, and also to install a distribution system within its borders. It would not be economically feasible to install the lines and operate a distribution system unless it can also deliver gas to the water users to power their irrigation pumps between a point five miles north of Las Cruces and Hatch, and also some ten to twenty miles north. The water users to be served are all members of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District and the gas would, under the terms of the declaratory judgment entered below, be billed to the irrigation district, or an improvement district to be organized by it. "* * * provided, however, that no such electric generating plant shall be located and no distribution lines shall extend beyond a distance of five (5) miles from the limits of such municipality, excepting for the sale of electricity or natural gas to the United States Government, the State of New Mexico, or any department or agency of such government." The trial court in a declaratory judgment action brought to determine the legality of the proposed undertaking held the Elephant Butte Irrigation District was an agency of the State of New Mexico, and that therefore it would be lawful for the village to sell gas to it or to an improvement district it might organize, and this appeal followed. The first and crucial question in the case is whether the irrigation district is an agency of the State of New Mexico. The district was organized and operates under § 75-23-1 to § 75-23-45 and §§ 75-24-1 to 75-24-54, N.M.S.A. 1953, covering irrigation districts cooperating with the United States under reclamation laws, and the territory under its jurisdiction is that part of the Rio Grande Reclamation Project south of Elephant Butte Dam and north of the Texas-New Mexico boundary line. The pertinent enabling provision of the statute is § 75-23-18, N.M.S.A. 1953, which reads: Nowhere in the statute is there any provision that such an irrigation district is a state agency, and there is no contention that it is an agency of the United States, although it was organized to operate under and cooperate with the United States in one of its reclamation projects. The Village places its principal reliance for an affirmance on the case of People ex rel. Rogers v. Letford, 1938, 102 Colo. 284, 79 P.2d 274, 281, wherein the constitutionality of the Water Conservancy Act of Colorado (Ch. 266, Colorado Laws of 1937) was determined and the court held an irrigation district organized thereunder was an agency of the State of Colorado. Such legislation contemplated statewide development and use of the waters of Colorado before they flowed past its borders, and was not limited as was Colorado's previous act authorizing the formation and operation of irrigation or drainage districts. It was given the right to levy taxes, provide water supplies for municipalities and other functions. To indicate the wide scope of the district to be organized thereunder we quote from the opinion: In section 7 of the Act it was provided that any district organized under the Act "* * * shall be a political subdivision of the State of Colorado and a body corporate with all of the powers of a public or municipal corporation." So with an Act of such state-wide purposes and the language quoted from section 7 it is not surprising that the court stated: The court further stated: We do not have such a situation in regard to the Elephant Butte Irrigation District. The dam and irrigation works had been constructed by the United States acting through its Reclamation Service and the district was organized for the purpose of cooperating with it and attending to such matters as came within its jurisdiction but only within its territorial jurisdiction. The irrigated lands are in private ownership, and the district acts as the agent of the owners for their private benefit. It does not levy taxes for its funds but makes a pro rata assessment on an acreage basis. In Logan Irrigation District v. Holt, 1943, 110 Colo. 253, 133 P.2d 530, it was held that an irrigation district organized under ch. 90, § 377 et seq., 1937 Colorado Statutes Annotated, was not a municipal corporation or state agency, following its previous holdings to that effect in Interstate Trust Co. v. Montezuma Valley Irrigation District, 1919, 66 Colo. 219, 181 P. 123; Holbrook Irrigation Dist. v. First State Bank of Cheraw, 1928, 84 Colo. 157, 268 P. 523, and Colorado Investment & Realty Co. v. Riverview Drainage District, 1928, 83 Colo. 468, 266 P. 501. The Colorado Irrigation Act under which the cases in the preceding paragraph were organized is in all essential respects the same as the New Mexico act under which the Elephant Butte Irrigation District was organized and operates. The Logan Irrigation District case was handed down several years after the opinion in the Letford case, and we regard it as strong authority in support of the position of the appellant here. It may well be doubted if the Elephant Butte District has previously considered itself a state agency or else it would have pleaded immunity from suit in the case of Stahmann v. Elephant Butte Irrigation District, 1956, 61 N.M. 68, 294 P.2d 636, which was filed after our opinion in Vigil v. Penitentiary of New Mexico, 1948, 52 N.M. 224, 195 P.2d 1014, overruling the holdings in Locke v. Trustees of New Mexico Reform School, 1917, 23 N.M. 487, 169 P. 304, and Dougherty v. Vidal, 1933, 37 N.M. 256, 21 P.2d 90, to the effect that the corporate status of a state agency, particularly the power to sue and be sued, is determinative of the question of whether a suit against such agency is a suit against the state. In Davy v. McNeill, 1925, 31 N.M. 7, 22, 240 P. 482, 489, this Court cited with approval State v. Board of Trustees of Town of Las Vegas, 1922, 28 N.M. 237, 210 P. 101, wherein it had been stated: The Court then stated: We are of the opinion and hold the Elephant Butte Irrigation District is not an agency of the State of New Mexico, and that the Village of Hatch may not sell gas to it more than five miles from the village boundary, and it necessarily follows that it also could not sell gas to an improvement district organized under its authority. What has been said makes it unnecessary to pass upon the other points raised by the appellant. *703 The judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded to the district court with instructions to enter another judgment in accordance with the views herein expressed. It is so ordered. LUJAN, C.J., and COMPTON, CARMODY and MOISE, JJ., concur.