Opinion ID: 1155993
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Issues (b), (d), (e) and (g)

Text: These issues are all interrelated and may be considered together. Basically they boil down to the question: Did the Priority No. 2 portion of the Crazy Woman Decree, supra, specify the amount of water necessary and useful for the irrigation of 1200 acres of land lying thereunder? The Priority No. 2 water right, along with others, was adjudicated pursuant to the judicial adjudication statutes, which provided for a declaration of existing water rights establishing the priority with the amount of water which shall be held to have been appropriated by such construction and enlargement. Appellants argue that since the statutory duty pursuant to the territorial act was to establish the amount of each existing water right, we must assume that such was done. However, to so assume would be to ignore the plain language of the Crazy Woman Decree itself. The Crazy Woman Decree sets the amount of water for Priority No. 2 at that amount necessary and useful for the irrigation of 1200 acres of land    not to exceed 67 and 3/100 cubic feet of water per second of time. The Crazy Woman Decree does not state what amount of water is necessary and useful. Regardless of what the territorial court was or was not required by law to do, it is clear from the document itself that no definite quantity of water was set forth in the Crazy Woman Decree. Thus appellants' res judicata argument also fails. In this jurisdiction the doctrine of res judicata and the related doctrine of collateral estoppel have been recognized in a number of decisions over the years. Barrett v. Town of Guernsey, Wyo., 652 P.2d 395 (1982); Roush v. Roush, Wyo., 589 P.2d 841 (1979); Bard Ranch Company v. Weber, Wyo., 557 P.2d 722 (1976); Blount v. City of Laramie, Wyo., 510 P.2d 294 (1973); Knight v. Boner, Wyo., 459 P.2d 205 (1969); Rubeling v. Rubeling, Wyo., 406 P.2d 283 (1965); Lee v. Brown, Wyo., 357 P.2d 1106 (1960); Willis v. Willis, 48 Wyo. 403, 49 P.2d 670 (1935), reh. denied 49 Wyo. 296, 54 P.2d 814 (1936); and Cook v. Elmore, 27 Wyo. 163, 192 P. 824 (1920). See also Price v. Bonnifield, 2 Wyo. 80 (1878). As recognized in this state, these doctrines incorporate a universal precept of common-law jurisprudence to the effect that a `right, question or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction ... cannot be disputed in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies.' Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153, 99 S.Ct. 970, 973, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979), quoting from Southern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 48-49, 18 S.Ct. 18, 27, 42 L.Ed. 355 (1897). These doctrines are founded upon the interest held by society in having differences conclusively resolved in a single action thereby avoiding the vexation and expense which are associated with piecemeal litigation. The necessity for sustaining this social interest is the justification for the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Montana v. United States, supra, 440 U.S. at 153-154, 99 S.Ct. at 973-74; Barrett v. Town of Guernsey, supra, 652 P.2d at 398-399; and Rubeling v. Rubeling, supra, 406 P.2d at 284. These doctrines, which inhibit the relitigation of claims or issues upon which there has been a full and fair opportunity to litigate in a court of competent jurisdiction, promote the reliance by citizens of the state upon courts to settle their disputes and they conserve judicial resources. Delgue v. Curutchet, Wyo., 677 P.2d 208, 213-214 (1984).    [T]he doctrine of res judicata is that an existing final judgment rendered upon the merits, without fraud or collusion, by a court of competent jurisdiction, is conclusive of causes of action and of facts or issues thereby litigated, as to the parties and their privies, in all other actions in the same or any other judicial tribunal of concurrent jurisdiction. 46 Am.Jur.2d Judgments § 394 (1969). No court has previously determined the issue in this case. Appellants inaccurately say in their brief that the appellees    selected one appropriator, the Zezas family, hauled them before the Board by force of law and sought to compel them to affirmatively prove their water right, though the water right was judicially determined 95 years ago in a proceeding in which their predecessors in interest participated. (Emphasis in original.) Appellants' water right was not fully determined 95 years ago  the amount of water was never quantified. That which was decided by the Crazy Woman Decree, i.e., the date of priority, the number of acres, and the right to water necessary and useful for the irrigation of those acres, is not being relitigated here; it is the amount of water which is necessary and useful for such purpose and which was never before quantified that is now at issue. That issue is not res judicata. In issue (g), appellants argue that the case of Quinn v. John Whitaker Ranch Co., 54 Wyo. 367, 92 P.2d 568 (1939), is directly on point and requires a reversal. Appellants' reliance on Quinn is misplaced. Quinn v. John Whitaker Ranch Co . did involve a water right adjudicated by the territorial district court prior to our present water statutes. However, a controlling difference is that in Quinn a specific amount of water was quantified by the 1889 decree. It specifically set forth the exact cubic feet of water per second of time allocated to the water right. Referring to the later statutorily imposed limit of one cubic foot per second per 70 acres, we said in Quinn, 92 P.2d at 571: We do not find in the statutes any expression of legislative intention to impose any other limitation on the quantity of water that may be used under rights adjudicated by Territorial courts.   However, we also said there that because of the nature of a water right, the limit of beneficial use would exist even in the absence of any statute.    The waters belong to the public or the state, and an appropriator cannot acquire a right that permits him to use more than is reasonably necessary for beneficial purposes.    92 P.2d at 571. In Quinn we held that a later enacted statutory limit on the quantity of water would not affect a water right adjudicated by the territorial district court. Such is true in this case. The issue in the two cases is different. A definite quantity was adjudicated in the Quinn case by the territorial district court. It was not adjudicated in this case. The concept of beneficial use, even though styled necessary and useful in the decree in question, controls. The statutory one cubic foot per second per 70 acres does not. The district court recognized this when it remanded the matter to the Board of Control with the direction that the Board of Control quantify the amount of water to which appellants are entitled, based on the necessary and useful language from the Crazy Woman Decree. The district court directed: That in determining the amount of water that is `necessary and useful' under the particular priorities in the Crazy Woman Decree of July 5, 1889, the Board of Control may consider the standard of one cubic foot per second of time for each seventy acres as one of the measurements commonly accepted in the State of Wyoming as what is `necessary and useful', but the Board is not precluded from considering a greater historical beneficial use in quantifying the beneficial use under each priority.