Opinion ID: 878071
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the question of beneficial use

Text: As noted previously, the failure of plaintiffs to establish adverse user defeats their entire claim to the 1,000 miner's inches. Therefore, we need not address the issue of whether plaintiffs proved beneficial use of the same sum. Nevertheless, defendants have cross-appealed as to the award of the first 500 miner's inches from Dog Creek, claiming there is no evidence to support beneficial use of that sum by the plaintiffs. Before turning to this issue, however, we address plaintiffs' argument that defendants are somehow estopped from challenging the award of 500 miner's inches on appeal. Plaintiffs claim that defendants have always recognized the validity of a prior right to 500 miner's inches in plaintiffs, and that a challenge to this right is estopped on appeal. Specifically, plaintiffs refer to certain sections of a motion for summary judgment made by defendants during the course of pre-trial proceedings. In an affidavit supporting the motion, defendant Vance Spencer stated that he always recognized the prior 500 inch Grimsley right ... Similarly, in a memorandum supporting the motion, defendant's attorney stated that, [d]efendant Vance Spencer's affidavit establishes clearly that plaintiffs have a recorded 500 inch water right in Dog Creek ... Finally, plaintiffs point to certain statements in requests for admissions filed by defendant's attorney which impliedly recognize a recorded 500 inch Grimsley right ... Plaintiffs argue that these statements from the pleadings, taken together, indicate recognition of the right and prevent defendants from asserting otherwise on appeal. That a party is bound by his pleadings needs no further elucidation. See, Fey v. A.A. Oil Corp. (1955), 129 Mont. 300, 285 P.2d 578. Upon a thorough examination of all the pleadings, as well as the statements of attorneys at trial, we believe that, contrary to plaintiffs' argument, the 500 inch claim was generally in dispute from the beginning. Defendants' initial answer to plaintiffs' complaint contained a general denial of all of plaintiffs' claims, which included an assertion of the 500 inch right. Clearly, the claim to that much water was material to the proceedings, and the effect of an answer generally denying the claims of a plaintiff has the effect of putting every material allegation in dispute. Davis v. Sullivan (1936), 103 Mont. 452, 62 P.2d 1292. Furthermore, pre-trial memoranda submitted indicate that defendants were willing not to contest plaintiffs' claim to 500 miner's inches if plaintiffs were willing to settle other aspects of the lawsuit. These statements do not constitute admissions. And, during trial, defendants and their counsel took great pains to refer to plaintiffs' claim as simply that and nothing more. Moreover, the conduct of plaintiffs' attorney at trial and the analysis of the trial court contained in the findings of fact further persuade us that defendant is not now changing his legal theory of the case. We note that defendants' summary judgment materials  the focus of plaintiffs' concern  were filed in early 1979. Pleadings submitted and arguments made by defendants after 1979 make it abundantly clear that the 500 inch claim was in dispute. Yet we find no indication in the record that plaintiffs did not know about defendants' arguments. Neither is there any indication that plaintiffs ever objected to this alleged change in strategy. Admittedly, the assertion by defendants that plaintiffs were not entitled to all of the 500 inch claim was perhaps most clearly stated in an amended answer stricken by the court as improperly filed. But in its memorandum accompanying its decree, the trial court stated that, except for the affirmative claim of defendants to a prescriptive right to the use of water not beneficially used by plaintiffs, it appears that issues raised by defendants [in the amended answer] are triable under the general denial of the original answer. We think this observation by the trial court constitutes further evidence that defendants fully intended to dispute plaintiffs' claim to the first 500 inches of water in Dog Creek. In any event, defendants were not in a legal position to admit that plaintiffs had a right to waters in the creek. Plaintiffs had a burden to prove that they had put the original Spencer claim to a beneficial use, and only when the trial court was satisfied that plaintiffs had sustained their burden would the claim ever ripen into a true right. Defendants could certainly choose not to contest the priority of any claim to the waters, and they could also opt not to dispute the granting of 500 miner's inches in exchange for a settlement, but these options did not relieve plaintiffs of their burden to show beneficial use to obtain a right. Construing all the pleadings, statements of counsel at trial, and observations of the trial court together, we find no reason to believe that defendants are now taking a position contrary to their approach both before and during trial. Defendants have never disputed that plaintiffs have a prior right to some of the waters of Dog Creek, and that appears to be the substance of the defendants' position in the motion for summary judgment in 1979. Defendants' assertion that plaintiffs are not entitled to the sum of 500 inches of the waters of Dog Creek is not a new issue. They are entitled to question now, as they did during trial and in their subsequent post-trial briefs, the award of that sum to the plaintiffs by the trial court. This is an equity case. In examining the trial court's decree, we are entitled to review all questions of fact arising upon the evidence in the record, and determine the same, as well as questions of law, unless for good cause a new trial or the taking of further evidence in the court below be ordered. Section 3-2-204(5), MCA. In so doing, however, we have always indulged certain presumptions in favor of the trial court's determinations. We do not substitute our judgment for that of the trial court; rather, we determine whether there is substantial evidence to support the lower court's findings. Bagnell v. Lemery (Mont. 1983), 657 P.2d 608, 40 St.Rep. 58; Shanahan v. Universal Tavern Corp. (1978), 179 Mont. 36, 39, 585 P.2d 1314, 1316. By substantial evidence, we mean that evidence which: will convince reasonable men and on which such men may not reasonably differ as to whether it establishes the plaintiff's case, and, if all reasonable men must conclude that the evidence does not establish such case, then it is not substantial evidence. The evidence may be inherently weak and still be deemed `substantial' ... [citations omitted]. Olson v. Westfork Properties, Inc. (1976), 171 Mont. 154, 158, 557 P.2d 821, 823. We will not overturn the trial court's findings unless there is a clear preponderance of evidence against them, and we will review the evidence in a light most favorable to the prevailing party. Cameron v. Cameron (1978), 179 Mont. 219, 228, 587 P.2d 939, 945. Clearly, the evidence presented by plaintiffs to justify a prior right to any quantity of water from Dog Creek was, to say the least, very sparse. Yet the trial court found that 500 miner's inches  the amount specified in William Spencer's 1899 claim  was reasonably required for irrigation purposes. The court based its decision on the following circumstances: a. That is the quantity for which William R. Spencer filed on April 22, 1899, from which this Court infers that experience as of that date led Spencer to specify that quantity. b. The soil in the area is permeable to moderately permeable, from which the Court infers that more than the usual one-inch per acre is reasonably required for penetration. c. The Dog Creek flow comes fast when it comes, and `dies quick,' so that the water must be so used as to give the soil a maximum soaking when the water is available. d. A strong flow of water is required to cover the 160 acres by means of the dike and ditch system of the Grimsleys. Findings of Fact No. 13. In its memorandum accompanying the decree and findings, the court reiterated these circumstances to justify the award. With respect to the first circumstance, we note initially that this, by itself, does not support the award. Statements made in notices of appropriation, while important to establishing a prima facie case for the sum of water claimed, are not entirely dispositive for the purpose of transforming the amount claimed into a right. Holmstrom Land Co. v. Meagher County Newland Creek Water Dist. (Mont. 1979), 605 P.2d 1060, 1065, 36 St.Rep. 1403, 1408-09, Irion v. Hyde (1938), 107 Mont. 84, 95-96, 81 P.2d 353, 358. Moreover, the trial court's inference is not supported by the evidence. As the court noted in another finding of fact, Spencer did not cultivate hay until 1901, nearly two years after the notice of appropriation was filed. There is no evidence in the record to indicate what experience he had in 1899, and whether he could justify a claim of 500 miner's inches for use on a hay crop that would not even be developed until two years later. Based on the available evidence, however, we cannot say that the remaining circumstances fail to support the trial court's decree. The testimony of the several lay witnesses, although admittedly very general, is not so inherently unreasonable as to warrant reversal. We recognize that a scientific evaluation of the soil and the requirements for cultivation is lacking, but we have often recognized that the claims and observations of those who work the land may be more important than the assessments of expert technicians. As we said in Federal Land Bank v. Morris (1941), 112 Mont. 445, 453, 116 P.2d 1007, 1010, ... the testimony of the men on the land, who know the soil, the kind of crops that can be raised on it, and who have spread the water and dug into that soil, and watched the effect during the entire growing season, brings in evidence of considerable weight [as opposed to the opinions of experts]. Here, there is substantial evidence, based on the observations of key witnesses, that the water applied to plaintiffs' land helped produce some of the best blue-joint hay in the Sun Prairie community, and that soil conditions and waterflow patterns warranted application of about 500 miner's inches of Dog Creek water, each time the water was available, in order to insure an annual crop. We are unwilling to disparage these observations, based as they are on years of experience in working and irrigating the land. Defendants have not pointed to anything in the court's findings of fact that is clearly erroneous within the meaning of Rule 52(a), M.R.Civ.P., save the facts surrounding the first circumstance for justifying the award. We find that this error is insignificant in the context of all of the trial court's findings. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court awarding priority of 500 miner's inches to plaintiffs and denying a prescriptive right to the remaining 1000 miner's inches is affirmed. HASWELL, C.J., and HARRISON, SHEEHY and SHEA, JJ., concur.