Opinion ID: 1162719
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lessees and Permit Holders

Text: The Opponents also argue that another group of potential claimants  lessees of state and federal land and government permit holders  were denied due process because their identities were reasonably ascertainable yet they were not specifically included on the mailing list for the service of the initial summons. We do not agree. First, most or all lessees and permittees of the federal government were likely to have been included on the SLD and DWR mailing lists of real property owners because federal regulations make ownership of private base property a prerequisite to the receipt of grazing and livestock permits. See 43 C.F.R. §§ 4110.1, 4110.2-1 (1990) (Bureau of Land Management regulations); 36 C.F.R. §§ 222.1(b)(3), 222.3(c) (1990) (Forest Service regulations); Garcia v. Andrus, 692 F.2d 89, 91 (9th Cir.1982) (discussing base property). Second, we have balanced the uncertain and, at most, derivative interests of such persons in the water rights adjudication against the difficulty and expense of identifying and serving them. See Tulsa Professional Collection Servs. v. Pope, 485 U.S. 478, 484, 108 S.Ct. 1340, 1344, 99 L.Ed.2d 565 (1988) (The focus is on the reasonableness of the balance, and, as Mullane itself made clear, whether a particular method of notice is reasonable depends on the particular circumstances.); Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314, 70 S.Ct. at 657 (balancing state's interest in its notice procedures against individual interest to be protected by due process). We conclude that in these circumstances publication notice to lessees and permittees was sufficient for due process. See Mullane, 339 U.S. at 317, 70 S.Ct. at 659 (not unreasonable for the State to dispense with more certain notice to those [interested persons] whose interests are either conjectural or future); see also Matter of Rights to Use Waters of Yakima River, 100 Wash.2d 651, 674 P.2d 160 (1983) (due process does not require service of process on all individual water users who receive water from distributing entities; service on those entities sufficient).