Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130642
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 16:35:09+00:00

Document:
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS 473 In early Wyoming cases, it was held with respect to direct-flow rights that a conveyance of the realty, by the owner of the land and water right, carried with it the ditch and water right without specifically mentioning the latter.184 This rule was referred to with approval and was applied in recent cases in which storage water rights were in litigation. As noted earlier under "Appurtenance of Water Rights to Land-Appurtenant and not Generally Severable With- out Loss of the Right," reservoir rights in Wyoming, as distinguished from direct-flow rights, do not attach to land except by conveyance executed by the reservoir owner. When reservoir rights are so established, as contemplated by the statute,185 they pass as appurtenances with con- veyance of the land, under the general rule governing such appurten- ances.186 The Idaho Supreme Court rendered several decisions involving conveyance of parts of tracts to which water rights were appurtenant. In our opinion, in which a deed to 20 acres out of a 160-acre tract also conveyed a right to 6.5 inches out of a decreed right of 50 inches for the entire quarter-section, and in which the evidence showed irrigation of the 20-acre parcel, this water-right conveyance was approved, the court stating that: "It is certainly neither unlawful, nor unusual, for the owner of a parcel of land, with an appurtenant water right, to convey a part of the land together with a portion of the appurtenant water right."187 Elsewhere, a landowner might convey part of his land together with part of an appurtenant water right, and likewise might include in or omit from the lien of the mortgage all or any part of the water rights appurtenant to the land mortgaged.188 And "A division of a tract of land to which water is appurtenant, without segregating or reserv- ing the water right, works a division of such water right in proportion as the land is divided."189 It has been held in California that unless a water right becomes inseparably appurtenant to the whole of a parcel, the owner can convey a part of the land with a reservation of the right for use on the land retained. Here, a conveyance of 62 acres of a 118-acre parcel, with an express reservation in the deed of the entire water right, operated to reserve validly the entire right for use on the retained 56 acres.190 184Frank v. Hicks, 4 Wyo. 502, 526, 531, 35 Pac. 475 (1894);McPhail v. Forney, 4 Wyo. 556, 560, 35 Pac. 773 (1894). 185 Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 41-37 (1957). 186Sturgeon v. Brooks, 73 Wyo. 436, 455-456, 281 Pac. (2d) 675 (1955); Condict v.Ryan, 79 Wyo. 211, 227-230, 333 Pac. (2d) 684 (1958). ™ Harvey v.Deseret Sheep Co., 40 Idaho 450,453, 234 Pac. 146 (1925). "* Harris v. Chapman, 51 Idaho 283, 294-295, 5 Pac. (2d) 733 (1931). 189Hunt v. Bremer, 47 Idaho 490, 493, 276 Pac. 964 (1929). i90Locke v. Yorba In. Co., 35 Cal. (2d) 205, 209-211, 217 Pac. (2d) 425 (1950). The court stated that if the grantor had conveyed the land without mention of the water rights, those rights would have passed with the conveyance.

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