Opinion ID: 2547313
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the general adjudication addressing the lower green river and price river drainage areas

Text: ¶ 8 The present appeal arises from a general adjudication that commenced nearly fifty years ago. While general adjudications take a significant amount of time to complete, this general adjudication, in particular, has frequently eddied within the stream of the adjudicative process. The adjudication began its course on March 20, 1956, when the general adjudication of water rights for the Lower Green River and the Price River was initiated via district court order. Pursuant to statute, the state engineer provided notice of the initiation of the general adjudication and prepared a hydrographic survey of the area. See Utah Code Ann. § 73-4-3. Additionally, the state engineer collected and analyzed all submitted water rights claims, including Water User's Claim 91-294, which was submitted by GRCC. After compiling and analyzing all of the relevant information, the state engineer prepared the Proposed Determination of Water Rights in the Price River and Lower Green River Drainage (Proposed Determination), which was published in six volumes. Book 5 of the Proposed Determination contains Water User's Claim 91-294, the GRCC claim at issue in the current case. ¶ 9 On December 15, 1972, Delbert Tidwell, the GRCC secretary, signed a document entitled Notice Receipt and Waiver. This form indicates that Mr. Tidwell personally received copies of Book 5 and Book 6. The form also contains the following language immediately above the signature line, which echoes language appearing earlier in the form: [T]he undersigned waives any further service in connection [with the Proposed Determination] and consents to the entry of a final decree in this cause unless a formal protest is made by the undersigned claimant to the above-entitled court within ninety (90) days from and after date hereof. In addition, the first page of each volume of the Proposed Determination contains a notice that states as follows: Pursuant to Section 73-4-11 U.C.A.1953, you are hereby notified that any claimant dissatisfied with said Proposed Determination must file with the Clerk of the above entitled Court a written objection thereto duly verified on oath within ninety (90) days from and after the date of service of this Proposed Determination upon you. If service was proper and complete when Mr. Tidwell signed the Notice Receipt and Waiver form, the ninety-day time period within which objections were required to be filed began to run no later than December 16, 1972. However, GRCC failed to file an objection to the Proposed Determination until June 20, 1973, well beyond the objection period. ¶ 10 GRCC's 1973 objection sought an increase of the irrigation duty [2] utilized by the state engineer when determining water rights for the Green River area. GRCC subsequently filed three additional protests, including two filed on June 18, 1993. One of the June 18, 1993 filings sought a further increase of the irrigation duty. The other claimed that a water right owned by Green River City should be disallowed due to the city's forfeiture. GRCC's last filing occurred on October 14, 1999, at which time GRCC asserted that the Proposed Determination inaccurately determined that GRCC was entitled to a water flow of sixty cubic feet per second during the irrigation season. GRCC claimed that the correct amount should be eighty cubic feet per second. [3] ¶ 11 On November 2, 2000, the State Engineer filed a motion to dismiss GRCC's 1973 objection as untimely. A dismissal of the 1973 objection would, in effect, render GRCC's subsequent filings inoperative, as those filings were either amendments to the 1973 objection or untimely because they were new objections filed beyond the ninety-day objection period. ¶ 12 GRCC opposed the motion to dismiss, disputing the effectiveness of the service of the Proposed Determination and further relying on the defenses of laches, waiver, equal protection, uniform operation of laws, and default. [4] At the same time, GRCC requested, pursuant to Utah Code section 73-4-10, that the district court extend GRCC's time for filing objections. Section 73-4-10 provides that the court shall have power to allow amendments to any petition, statement or pleading; to extend as provided in this title the time for filing any statement of claim; and to extend, upon due cause shown, the time for filing any other pleading, statement, report or protest. Alternatively, GRCC sought dismissal of the entire general adjudication on a failure-to-prosecute theory. ¶ 13 The district court denied the State Engineer's motion to dismiss GRCC's 1973 objection. The court's decision focused on the state engineer's failure to strictly comply with section 73-4-11's requirement that proposed determinations be served by regular mail. The court concluded that this perceived service failure granted it  legal latitude  and justified the imposition of an equitable remedy. Specifically, the district court concluded that if all objectors/claimants are to be treated fairly, then all claimants should have 90 days to present their objections under 73-4-11, and I believe that period should be computed using the date of the last event, either mailing certificate or waiver, which is on file herein which affects each area. Because the district court determined that the date of the last event in the GRCC area was June 4, 1974, the date on which a water claimant named Joseph Novak signed a Notice Receipt and Waiver form, the court concluded that GRCC's June 20, 1973 objection was filed within the ninety-day objection period. The district court then stated that it would treat GRCC's `supplemental filings' ... as merely amendments and/or specifications to the original filing. ¶ 14 The district court's willingness to consider the initial GRCC objection timely, coupled with its decision to view GRCC's three subsequent objections as amendments to the first timely objection, made it unnecessary for the court to grant GRCC's motion for an extension of time. As a result, the district court denied that motion without reaching its merits. ¶ 15 On appeal, the State Engineer challenges the district court's interpretation of section 73-4-11, as well as the district court's decision to treat GRCC's post-1973 filings as amendments to GRCC's original objection. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78-2-2(3)(j) (2002).