Opinion ID: 2506186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: language from prior cases

Text: ¶ 9 This court has never squarely addressed the issue of whether an adverse user can successfully obtain an adverse use right if the adverse use period began before 1939 but was not completed until after 1939. Our prior cases contain dicta that seem to support both sides of the argument. In Wellsville East Field Irrigation Co. v. Lindsay Land & Livestock Co., we stated that title could between 1903 and 1939 be acquired by adverse possession, thereby implying that adverse use title could not vest after 1939. 104 Utah 448, 137 P.2d 634, 640 (1943) (emphasis added). But in Mitchell v. Spanish Fork West Field Irrigation Co., we stated that [p]laintiff's claim to the waters in question is based on [being an] adverse user from 1899 to 1939; since which date the initiation of water rights by this method has been precluded by statute. 1 Utah 2d 313, 265 P.2d 1016, 1019 (1954) (emphasis added). This language suggests that the 1939 amendment prohibited only claims for which the adverse use had commenced after 1939, but allowed adverse use claims where the adverse use began prior to that date. A few years later, however, our language in In re Drainage Area of Bear River suggested that the seven years of adverse use must have been completed by 1939. 12 Utah 2d 1, 361 P.2d 407 (1961). In that case, we stated that appellants could acquire water rights by adverse use only by continuous adverse use for seven years after the 1919 decree and before the 1939 statute. Id. at 410. ¶ 10 The apparent confusion caused by our dicta is shown by the fact that two commentaries on Utah law relied on our cases to reach opposite conclusions on the issue. According to Summary of Utah Real Property Law, the effect of the 1939 amendment was that any possible claims of a right arising by adverse use must have matured before the 1939 amendment to the Code. 2 Brigham Young Univ. Legal Studies, Summary of Utah Real Property Law 618 (1978). In a separate article, A Primer of Utah Water Law, Robert W. Swenson reached the opposite conclusion, stating that [t]he supreme court ... indicated that adverse use which had commenced prior to 1939 could ripen into title after the effective date of the act. Robert W. Swenson, A Primer of Utah Water Law: Part I, 5 J. Energy L. & Pol'y 165, 190 (1984). ¶ 11 Our most recent dicta concerning the issue came in Salt Lake City v. Silver Fork Pipeline Corp., 2000 UT 3, 5 P.3d 1206. In footnote 19 of Silver Fork, we stated: Before 1939, Utah law allowed a party to obtain title to use of water by adverse possession. See Hammond v. Johnson, 94 Utah 20, 28, 66 P.2d 894, 900-01 (1937). Following an amendment to Utah's Water Code in 1939, adverse use that began before 1939 could still ripen into title after the effective date of the Act. See Mitchell v. Spanish Fork West Field Irr. Co., 1 Utah 2d 313, 317, 265 P.2d 1016, 1019 (1954); Wellsville East Field Irr. Co. v. Lindsay Land & Livestock Co., 104 Utah 448, 460-66, 137 P.2d 634, 640 (1943). However, adverse use commenced after the effective date of the [A]ct could not ripen into title by adverse possession: No right to the use of water either appropriated or unappropriated can be acquired by adverse use or adverse possession. 1939 Utah Laws ch. 111, § 1. Id. ¶ 46 n. 19. ¶ 12 Although the language of Silver Fork is ostensibly clear, it is only dicta. In that case, Silver Fork Pipeline Company argued that if its adverse use commenced prior to 1939, the adverse use right could vest after 1939. Salt Lake City did not argue whether Silver Fork's legal analysis was correct. Rather, Salt Lake City argued that even under Silver Fork's interpretation, no adverse use right arose because the adverse use by Silver Fork's predecessor did not begin until the 1940s. Because the actual interpretation of the 1939 amendment was never squarely before the court, the language of footnote 19 was an unexamined assumption that is not instructive in our decision in the present case. [3] ¶ 13 Because our prior language is both contradictory and nonbinding dicta, we reject our prior statements and construe the statute anew, beginning with its plain language.