Title: Holmberg v. Bradford

State: new-mexico

Issuer: New Mexico Supreme Court

Document:

244 P.2d 785 (1952) 56 N.M. 401 HOLMBERG et al. v. BRADFORD et al. No. 5344. Supreme Court of New Mexico. May 23, 1952. *786 G. W. R. Hoy, Farmington, Johnston Jeffries, Aztec, for appellants. J. Murray Palmer, Charles M. Tansey, Jr., Farmington, for appellees. ARLEDGE, District Judge. The plaintiffs are owners of shares in interest in the Twin Rocks Ditch Company, a community irrigation ditch located in San Juan County, New Mexico. The defendants, approximately fourteen in number, comprise and include all of the other shareholders in said community ditch company. It is not necessary here to summarize the allegations of the complaint and answer because the issues were materially limited by stipulation and agreement of counsel at a pre-trial conference. Following the pre-trial conference, the material allegations of the complaint appear to be that the sum of approximately seventeen land owners in number own 345 acres of land which were irrigated from waters that flow through the said community ditch. Of this acreage plaintiff C.H. Holmberg owns 119.4 acres, and the other two plaintiffs jointly own 14.7 acres. In other words, the plaintiffs together own 134.1 acres out of the total land they allege to be irrigated by said community ditch, which this Court finds, by mathematical computation, to be 38.87 per centum of the irrigated acreage. The complaint further states that the ownership of said Twin Rocks Ditch Company is represented by seventy shares in interest in the said company, and that the shares in interest are owned by some seventeen persons, including the plaintiffs. All of these *787 persons are either defendants or plaintiffs in the action. Of these seventy shares, the plaintiff C.O. Holmberg is the largest shareholder with eighteen shares; the two other plaintiffs jointly own three shares, making a total of twenty-one shares in interest owned by the plaintiffs. This Court, by mathematical computation, determines that the plaintiffs own thirty per cent. of the shares in interest of the said Twin Rocks Ditch Company. The complaint is apparently based upon the theory that each of the land owners is entitled to a share in interest in the community ditch company in proportion to the number of acres irrigated by each land owner from the waters of said ditch. The principal prayer for relief prays that the Court issue a mandatory injunction commanding the defendants to "make a proper apportionment of shares in defendant ditch company to each of the respective owners of land irrigated by waters from said Twin Rocks Ditch, in proportion to the amount of land each respective shareholder has (irrigates with water from said ditch), and that the records of said Twin Rocks Ditch Company be made to show such proportioned shares to each respective shareholder therein." (The words in parenthesis are supplied by this Court to correct an obvious clerical error in the prayer for relief). The order of the trial court recited that it was made following pre-trial conference, and sustained the defendants' motion to dismiss, said motion to dismiss being in the nature of a demurrer. The order of the trial court reads as follows: From this order of the trial court sustaining the motion to dismiss, plaintiffs have appealed, contending that the court committed error as a matter of law. Defendants have filed a cross-appeal. But if the ruling of the trial court was correct on this point, it is not necessary to consider any of the other issues raised by the appeal or by the cross-appeal. The pleadings indicate that the Twin Rocks Ditch Company has existed prosperously and usually peacefully for some sixty years; that it conveys water out of a stream in Colorado into New Mexico; that two persons owning three shares in interest in the company are residents of Colorado and irrigate land in Colorado; and that the plaintiff C.O. Holmberg was, until recently, the Chairman of the Board *788 of Trustees of the community ditch company. Section 77-1407, N.M.S.A. 1941 Comp., same being Chapter 30 of the Laws of 1882, reads as follows: On the basis of the foregoing statute it would appear that the rights of ownership of the ditch are rights separate and apart from the rights of ownership of water that the ditch conveys. The community ditch in this case is only the carrier. Any new land owner, or any land owner who has increased the number of his acres of irrigable land, wishing to carry water through an established ditch, can do so only by consent of the owners of the shares in interest in the ditch company, and by payment to the ditch company of a price proportionate to the primary cost of the ditch, based upon the amount of water to be carried. It would appear that the new land owner, or the land owner who has additional or enlarged acreage that could be irrigated from the community ditch has absolutely no right to an additional interest or ownership in the ditch until he has secured the consent of the majority of the owners of said ditch, and has arranged to pay for additional carrier space in the ditch. The New Mexico statute, which apparently grew out of customs of the early settlers, recognized only two methods of acquiring a right of property in a community irrigation ditch: The first was by the initial joinder of the land owners in the construction of the ditch each contributed in cash or labor, or both, to such construction; the other is by the method of consent and purchase above referred to. Section 77-1414, N.M.S.A. 1941 Comp., the same being Chapter 1 of the Laws of 1895, reads as follows: Although there is some language in this latter statute regarding methods of voting which might conflict with the method of voting the shares in interest of the owners of the community ditch acquired under the 1882 Law, we believe that the 1895 Law merely provides two alternative methods of voting, and it does not destroy any property rights which the 1882 statute recognized. The 1895 statute in no way compels us to grant the relief which plaintiffs seek here. In the 1914 New Mexico case, Snow v. Abalos, 18 N.M. 681, at page 696, 140 P. 1044, at page 1049, this Court attempted to clarify the distinction between water rights and shares of interest in a community ditch, set out as follows: In Parke v. Boulware, 7 Idaho 490, 63 P. 1045, 1047, the Supreme Court of Idaho expressed a similar view of the law, stating: In Wiel on water rights, Vol. 1, p. 482, the learned author states: Section 77-1411, N.M.S.A. 1941 Comp., Chapter 1 of the Laws of 1895, by its provision declares: that community ditches are constituted as bodies corporate. It would therefore appear that the defendant in this cause, the Twin Rocks Ditch Company, a community ditch corporation, by its being a body corporate owns a community ditch which is in effect an easement for the purpose of transporting water; that the other defendants in this cause own shares in interest in said community ditch corporation, and that plaintiffs' contention that the courts of this state should readjust the shares in interest in said community ditch corporation in proportion to the water rights of the land owners using said ditch, or in proportion to the number of acres irrigated by each land owner using said ditch, is not a valid contention of law. The contention of the plaintiffs, in effect, asks this Court to strike down the letter and spirit of the cited 1882 statute of this state, and, in effect, asks this Court *790 to destroy vested property rights and create new property rights this Court cannot legally or constitutionally do. Finding no error in the order of the learned trial judge in sustaining defendants' motion to dismiss, the decision of the trial court will be affirmed. It is so ordered. LUJAN, C.J., and McGHEE, COMPTON and COORS, JJ., concur. SADLER, J., not participating.