Opinion ID: 2520075
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: did the washington county water conservancy district obtain standing by virtue of its participation in the change application proceedings before the state engineer?

Text: ¶ 11 When a change application is filed with the state engineer, section 73-3-7(1) of the Utah Code permits any person interested to file a protest with the state engineer. Utah Code Ann. § 73-3-7(1) (1989). In response to the CPB's change application, the Conservancy District filed such an administrative protest. The state engineer nevertheless approved the application. Section 73-3-14 of the Utah Code provides that any person aggrieved by an order of the state engineer may obtain judicial review of that order. Utah Code Ann. § 73-3-14 (1989). The Conservancy District contends that its administrative protest of the change application establishes it as a person aggrieved by the state engineer's decision, thereby entitling it to seek judicial review of that decision and to seek forfeiture of the underlying water rights. This argument raises the question of whether every interested person who protests a change application is also an aggrieved person entitled to judicial review of the state engineer's decision on that application. This is a question of statutory interpretation that we review for correctness. Bohne, 2002 UT 116 at ¶ 4, 63 P.3d 63. ¶ 12 In support of its claim that it acquired standing by virtue of its participation in administrative proceedings before the state engineer, the Conservancy District relies on our decision in Bonham v. Morgan, 788 P.2d 497 (Utah 1989). The Conservancy District interprets Bonham as having established that anyone who protests a change application thereby acquires a right to judicial review of the application. ¶ 13 Bonham is distinguishable from this case. In Bonham, we reversed a trial court's determination that the plaintiffs lacked standing to seek judicial review of the state engineer's decision approving a change application. Id. at 502. In that case, however, there was no question that the protesting plaintiffs could demonstrate particularized injury inasmuch as the defendants' water use caused flooding on the plaintiffs' property. Id. at 498. Rather, the question before the court was whether the injured plaintiffs, who were not holders of water rights, were nevertheless aggrieved persons entitled to judicial review of the state engineer's decision. We held that the plaintiffs did not need to be holders of water rights in order to be aggrieved within the meaning of Utah Code section 73-3-14. Id. at 502. We did not hold that the plaintiffs were exempt from showing that they were aggrieved or would be aggrieved by an adverse outcome. ¶ 14 Unlike the term interested, the term aggrieved suggests the presence of actual or potential injury. One is not necessarily aggrieved within the meaning of section 73-3-14 simply by virtue of having protested a change application that was approved. The commonly understood meaning of the term aggrieved is consistent with our traditional standing requirement that a plaintiff show particularized injury. We see nothing in the statutory framework to suggest a legislative attempt to grant a right of judicial review to those who can show no such grievance or injury. ¶ 15 We find further support for a distinction between the protest right of interested persons under Utah Code section 73-3-7(1) and the right to judicial review granted to aggrieved persons in Utah Code section 73-3-14 in our case of Badger v. Brooklyn Canal Co., 922 P.2d 745 (Utah 1996). In Badger, we concluded that the grant of a protest right in Utah Code section 73-3-7(1) does not carry with it an automatic right to appeal the state engineer's decision in court. We stated that section 73-3-7(1) does not create in any interested person a vested right to protest and subsequent entitlement to appeal. Rather, it simply allows those persons who have a genuine concern about proposed changes in water rights to voice those concerns before the State Engineer and, as an important corollary, provides the State Engineer with all viewpoints relevant to any proposal. 922 P.2d at 750 n. 9. ¶ 16 Our holding that an interested person does not become aggrieved simply by virtue of filing a protest in administrative proceedings before the state engineer is reinforced by the adverse practical consequences that would follow such bootstrapping. Had the Conservancy District attempted to obtain forfeiture of the CPB's rights before the CPB filed its change application, the Conservancy District would have been required to meet traditional standing requirements. Were we to interpret the phrase any person aggrieved to include all interested persons who protest a change application, the filing of a change application would expose the underlying water rights to otherwise unavailable forfeiture challenges, because an uninjured protestant would be able to insert its foot into an otherwise closed jurisdictional door. We doubt that the legislature intended the change application process to carry with it an increased risk of losing the rights underlying the application. Equating the statutory term aggrieved with the traditional standing requirement of particularized injury thereby serves the interests of consistency by foreclosing what would otherwise be a loophole in forfeiture claim adjudication. [4]