Opinion ID: 2621725
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Historical Basis for the Pueblo Rights Doctrine

Text: {25} In the district court, the State Engineer tendered the expert opinion of several witnesses discussing the question of whether the pueblo rights doctrine is supported by historical evidence: Professor G. Emlen Hall, a legal historian, Dr. Iris Engstrand, a historian, Professor Guillermo F. Margadant, an expert in Spanish and Mexican legal history, Professor Hans W. Baade, a legal historian, and Professor Daniel Tyler, a historian. Each of these experts concluded that the pueblo rights doctrine lacks a historical foundation in the law of either of the two antecedent sovereigns in New Mexico, Spain and Mexico. The State Engineer's experts provided examples of other towns established by colonization grants in New Mexico and Texas for which there is no evidence of a prior and paramount right to water. See, e.g., Daniel Tyler, The Mythical Pueblo Rights Doctrine 35-44 (1990). In response to these expert opinions, the City devoted its tender on the validity of the pueblo rights doctrine to Cartwright and its authorities, which primarily consisted of the California cases recognizing the pueblo rights doctrine, see Vernon Irrigation Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 106 Cal. 237, 39 P. 762 (1895), overruled on other grounds by Beckett v. City of Petaluma, 171 Cal. 309, 153 P. 20, 23 (1915); Lux, 69 Cal. 255, 10 P. 674; see also City of Los Angeles v. City of San Fernando, 14 Cal.3d 199, 123 Cal.Rptr. 1, 537 P.2d 1250, 1277 (1975) (stating that Lux and Vernon are the key decisions on the issue), disapproved on other grounds by City of Barstow v. Mojave Water Agency, 23 Cal.4th 1224, 99 Cal.Rptr.2d 294, 5 P.3d 853, 867-68 (2000). Based on the scholarly criticism of the State Engineer's experts, the Court of Appeals concluded that the pueblo rights doctrine is historically invalid. State ex rel. Martinez, 118 N.M. at 263, 880 P.2d at 874; accord In re Contests of the City of Laredo to the Adjudication of Water Rights, 675 S.W.2d 257, 259-69 (Tex. App.1984). {26} The State Engineer contends that the pueblo rights doctrine is historically invalid. However, because this Court adopted the pueblo rights doctrine in Cartwright, we do not treat the issue of the historical validity of the doctrine as we would if it were an issue of first impression. Thus, the question is not whether we agree with the State Engineer's historical view of the law of antecedent sovereigns but, instead, whether this Court's historical analysis in Cartwright is so clearly erroneous as to create a compelling reason for overruling Cartwright. Having reviewed the State Engineer's tender and the authorities upon which Cartwright relied, we do not believe that the historical evidence is sufficiently clear to justify overruling Cartwright on this basis. {27} The State Engineer's primary attack on the historical validity of the pueblo rights doctrine is its inconsistency with the Spanish and Mexican practice of equitable apportionment and common use, as stated in the Plan of Pitic and the Recopilación. However, this Court was not unaware of this view of the law of antecedent sovereigns when adopting the pueblo rights doctrine. See Cartwright, 66 N.M. at 97, 343 P.2d at 676-77 (Federici, D.J., dissenting) (quoting Section 7 of the Plan of Pitic, which states in relevant part that `[t]he residents and natives shall enjoy equally ... water privileges ... in common with the residents and natives of the adjoining and neighboring pueblos' ). Moreover, the State Engineer's reliance on equitable apportionment conflicts with this Court's longstanding interpretation of water law applicable in New Mexico under Spanish and Mexican rule outside the context of the pueblo rights doctrine. {28} Although [t]he water in the public stream belongs to the public, Snow v. Abalos, 18 N.M. 681, 693, 140 P. 1044, 1048 (1914), unappropriated water is subject to appropriation for beneficial use. N.M. Const. art. XVI, § 2. Once appropriated, [p]riority of appropriation shall give the better right. N.M. Const. art. XVI, § 2. New Mexico water law, then, stands in contrast to the State Engineer's reliance on a theory of common use, under which reasonable use and equitable sharing would control. Although the State Engineer relies on Spanish and Mexican law in support of equitable distribution, the current system of water law in New Mexico is based on this Court's interpretation of the law of antecedent sovereigns. In New Mexico, the Colorado doctrine, as it is termed, of prior appropriation prevails. Established or founded by the custom of the people, it grew out of the condition of the country and the necessities of its citizens. The common-law doctrine of riparian right was not suited to an arid region, and was never recognized by the people of this jurisdiction. When the question came before the courts for adjudication[, Albuquerque Land & Irrigation Co. v. Gutierrez, 10 N.M. 177, 240, 61 P. 357, 360-61 (1900), aff'd, 188 U.S. 545, 23 S.Ct. 338, 47 L.Ed. 588 (1903)], the doctrine of prior appropriation was recognized by the courts and became the settled law of the territory. The judicial declaration, however, did not make the law; it only recognized the law as it had been established and applied by the people, and as it had always existed from the first settlement of this portion of the country. This construction of the law by the courts has been consistently adhered to by the Legislature of the territory.... Snow, 18 N.M. at 693, 140 P. at 1048; accord State ex rel. State Game Comm'n v. Red River Valley Co., 51 N.M. 207, 226, 182 P.2d 421, 433 (1945) (stating that prior appropriation has been applied in New Mexico for some two or three centuries); United States v. Rio Grande Dam & Irrigation Co., 9 N.M. 292, 306, 51 P. 674, 678 (1898) (The law of prior appropriation existed under the Mexican republic at the time of the acquisition of New Mexico ....), rev'd on other grounds, 174 U.S. 690, 19 S.Ct. 770, 43 L.Ed. 1136 (1899). {29} In fact, we have previously rejected equitable apportionment as inconsistent with New Mexico's system of prior appropriation. Yeo v. Tweedy, 34 N.M. 611, 286 P. 970 (1929). In Yeo, a landowner asserted rights to underlying groundwater by virtue of ownership of the land, either as absolute ownership of as much water as the landowner could capture or to the right to reasonable use of such waters correlative with similar rights of other owners. Id. at 614, 286 P. at 971-72. According to the correlative rights doctrine, each overlying owner would have the same rightthe right to use whenever he [or she] saw fit. The right does not arise from an appropriation to beneficial use, which develops the resources of the state. It is not lost or impaired by nonuse. Regardless of the improvements and investments of the pioneers, later comers and later developers may claim their rights. The exercise of those rights which have been in abeyance will frequently destroy or impair existing improvements, and may so reduce the rights of all that none are longer of practical value, and that the whole district is reduced to a condition of nonproductiveness. The preventive for such unfortunate and uneconomic results is found in the recognition of the superior rights of prior appropriators. Invested capital and improvements are thus protected. New appropriations may thus be made only from a supply not already in beneficial use. Nonuse involves forfeiture. A great natural public resource is thus both utilized and conserved. Id. at 620, 286 P. at 974. We concluded that the doctrine of prior appropriation is the rule best adapted to our condition and circumstances, id. at 621, 286 P. at 974, and that this rule applied in New Mexico under Spanish and Mexican sovereignty, compare id. at 617-18, 286 P. at 973, with id. at 630, 286 P. at 978 (Parker, J., dissenting on rehearing) (stating that Spanish and Mexican civil law was the same as the common law in regard to percolating waters). {30} Based on these authorities, we could not reject the pueblo rights doctrine through a recognition of equitable apportionment and common use without undermining the historical basis for New Mexico's adoption of the doctrine of prior appropriation as a legacy of antecedent sovereigns. In short, New Mexico does not recognize equitable distribution as the system of water law that survived the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. But cf. Colorado v. New Mexico, 459 U.S. 176, 183-88, 103 S.Ct. 539, 74 L.Ed.2d 348 (1982) (applying the federal common law doctrine of equitable apportionment to interstate water adjudications between prior appropriation states and rejecting priority as the sole criterion). We will not, in the limited context of the pueblo rights doctrine, reevaluate the entire historical basis for water law in this State. We thus reject the State Engineer's arguments relating to common use. {31} Moreover, we are wary of undue reliance on scholarly opinions in re-evaluating a position previously adopted by this Court. As the record in this case demonstrates, historical opinion can fluctuate based on newly found historical evidence or novel interpretations of extant sources. Unlike history as a matter of theory, however, the law, as reflected by the doctrine of stare decisis, requires a greater degree of certainty and predictability. For example, if we were to adopt the State Engineer's historical analysis, the discovery of new evidence supporting the existence of the pueblo rights doctrine in Spanish and Mexican law would remain a possibility, see State ex rel. Martinez, 118 N.M. at 265, 880 P.2d at 876 (Hartz, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), which would undoubtedly lead to another dispute over the historical validity of this doctrine. For property rights in general and water rights in particular, we believe that defining these rights based on prevailing scholarship would create an intolerable degree of uncertainty. Thus, while we concede that, in light of presently available historical evidence, the pueblo rights doctrine rests... on a very narrow foundation, Wells A. Hutchins, Pueblo Water Rights in the West, 38 Tex. L.Rev. 748, 757 (1960), we are not convinced that this Court's adoption of the pueblo rights doctrine in Cartwright represents an entirely untenable view of Spanish and Mexican law. See Hans W. Baade, The Historical Background of Texas Water LawA Tribute to Jack Pope, 18 St. Mary's L.J. 1, 82 (1986) (Given the high priority of [domestic and municipal] purposes, [the pueblo water right] claim seems neither implausible nor inequitable.). As a result, we do not believe that the State Engineer's tender provides the compelling reason to overrule Cartwright that we demand in order to depart from stare decisis. {32} In any event, because we conclude, as discussed in detail below, that the pueblo rights doctrine is inconsistent with New Mexico law and not protected by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the historical validity of the pueblo rights doctrine is irrelevant to our determination that Cartwright must be overruled. Regardless of whether the pueblo rights doctrine has a valid historical basis in the law of antecedent sovereigns, New Mexico water law, following the Treaty, precludes its recognition. Thus, the doctrine's inconsistency with New Mexico law forecloses any future argument that the pueblo rights doctrine exists in New Mexico irrespective of its historical validity or invalidity.