Opinion ID: 2334067
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reaches 16, 17 & 19: Canal Purposes Only

Text: ¶ 52 The existence of restrictive covenants in the Crosgrove Deeds requires us to construe those covenantsto define the scope of the canal purposes to which Reaches 16 and 17 are limited. And because the District's Reach 19 easement extends only to its canal, our construction of the scope of canal purposes also delineates the scope of the District's rights in Reach 19. [25] ¶ 53 In evaluating the scope of the Water District's canal rights, we are faced with the questions (1) whether canal is broad enough to include culinary water, (2) whether canal is limited to an open water channel or could refer to an enclosed pipeline, and (3) if so, whether the District's enclosure of the canal is a reasonable technological improvement to its property. Appellants insist that canals are waterways intended for irrigation purposes, not culinary water purposes. Appellants also suggest that canal necessarily implies an open waterway. Alternatively, appellants argue that even if canal could be construed to include a culinary water pipeline, the District's above-ground airvalve structures, which are visible from appellants' homes, materially increase the burden on their land such that the aqueduct is not a reasonable technological improvement to the property. The Water District, on the other hand, insists that canal encompasses not just irrigation water, but also culinary water; and that canal might plausibly refer not just to an open waterway, but to an enclosed pipeline; and that its transformation of the open canal into an underground pipelinewith its associated air-valve structures and fiber-optic control cableis a reasonable technological improvement that does not exceed the scope of canal as used in the governing instruments. ¶ 54 The district court adopted the Water District's position. It concluded that there is no legal or factual support for the plaintiffs' position that the easement ... must be limited to irrigation purposes only. And as for the pipeline enclosure, the court held that the District's use is reasonable, given the need for modernization, and does not pose an excessive burden. In support of this conclusion, the district court cited Valcarce v. Fitzgerald, 961 P.2d 305, 313 (Utah 1998), and Big Cottonwood Tanner Ditch Co. v. Moyle, 109 Utah 213, 174 P.2d 148, 161 (1946), which, the court concluded, permit reasonable modification and improvement of canals, including enclosure. [26] ¶ 55 We first address whether a canal, as the term is used in the Crosgrove Deeds (Reaches 16-17) and the Smith Decree (Reach 19), may be used to transport culinary water or must be limited to irrigation water. For reasons that follow, we affirm the district court's conclusion that canal in this context is not limited to irrigation purposes. We then address whether canal could encompass a buried pipeline or is instead limited to an open water channel. On this issue, we conclude that canal may encompass a closed pipeline. Finally, we reverse the district court's conclusion that the District's particular enclosure in this case was reasonable and not unduly burdensome and remand for further proceedings on that issue.
¶ 56 In determining the meaning of canal purposes only, the interpretive question before us is what the Crosgroves and the court entering the Smith Decree meant when they used the word canal. Neither the Deeds nor the Decree explicitly refer to irrigation purposes. Nor do they make explicit reference to culinary purposes. The question, then, is whether the word canal itself conveys a limitation to a particular purpose irrigation or culinaryor instead encompasses any or all water uses. ¶ 57 Although appellants cite a dictionary definition of canal that explicitly refers to irrigation purposes, [27] they do not seriously contend that canal necessarily excludes culinary purposes. Instead, they argue that the court may look to the subsequent behavior of the parties to clarify any uncertainty. According to appellants, the parties' use of canal must be limited to irrigation purposes because ULIC and Draper Irrigation used the canal from 1921 to 1993 solely for irrigation purposes. ¶ 58 For its part, the Water District points to other dictionary definitions that do not limit canal to irrigation purposes. [28] It further argues that the Deeds and Smith Decree should be construed in light of the conditions in place at the time the [property interest] was created. We agree with the District. Looking to the uses of canals throughout Utah's early history, we interpret canal in this context to include transportation of culinary water. ¶ 59 Turning first to dictionaries, we note that most every dictionary definition of canal is broad enough to include culinary water. [29] That is a significant strike in the District's favor. Where the parties to a deed used broad language that admits of no qualification, courts should honor that choice and hold them to it. ¶ 60 In the absence of strong dictionary support for their position, appellants point to the parties' subsequent behavior for clarification. That behavior bears some relevance to our interpretation. The meaning of a word must be determined by looking to the context and circumstances in which it is used (whether in a contract, a deed, or in a court judgment [30] ). However, while subsequent behavior is part of the context of a writing and can thus inform its meaning, [31] we do not know the specific reason that Draper Irrigation transported only irrigation water. It could have been because Draper Irrigation thought the term canal limited its property rights to irrigation water; but it could have been for some other reasonsay, because it was in the irrigation business, not the culinary-water business. Thus, more than subsequent behavior is necessary in this case to resolve the interpretive issue. ¶ 61 Aside from dictionary definitions and subsequent use by the parties, common uses of canals in the early 1900s (the period in which the Deeds and Decree were executed) informs the meaning that the Crosgroves and the Smith court would have given to canal. And though irrigation was a major driving force behind Utah's extensive canal system, the state's water history leaves us with no doubt that the historical understanding of canal uses would have extended to culinary purposes. This is evident in city ordinances, in documents describing canal projects, and in judicial decisions discussing early twentieth-century canals in Utah. ¶ 62 In the latter half of the nineteenth century, many city ordinances referred to nonirrigation, domestic uses of canals. At that time, the practice of many Utah cities was to appoint a water-master to supervise the cities' canals. [32] City ordinances in Salt Lake City, Logan, and Provo all defined the water-master's duties to include dividing canal waters as shall best serve the public interest for irrigation, domestic and other purposes. [33] ¶ 63 Canal projects elsewhere in the state likewise extended to nonirrigation purposes. The Bear River Canal was constructed by the Bear Lake and River Water Works and Irrigation Company, whose purpose was to supply water for domestic, municipal and manufacturing uses ... for irrigation of land and for all other useful and beneficial purposes. [34] ¶ 64 Judicial decisions from the early 1900s also make references to culinary uses of Utah canals. A 1901 decree entered in the Salt Lake County District Court, known as the Morse Decree, granted Salt Lake City and four canal companies the right to the use of all of the balance of the waters of the Jordan [R]iver for municipal, irrigation, culinary, and domestic purposes, to the extent of the capacity of their several canals. [35] That these canal companies were using the Jordan River for domestic purposes after 1901 is telling, as the Draper Canal drew its water from the Jordan Riverthe same river at issue in the Morse Decree. [36] ¶ 65 Our decision in Big Cottonwood Tanner Ditch Co. v. Shurtliff, 49 Utah 569, 164 P. 856 (1916), provides further evidence of an early twentieth-century understanding of canal that encompassed culinary uses. At issue in Shurtliff were water rights for culinary, domestic, and live stock purposes in the south branch of the Big Cottonwood Tanner Ditch. Id. at 864. In describing the background facts, the court noted that Mr. Hawker ... lived near the ditch in question and obtained his water for culinary and domestic purposes directly therefrom. Id. at 858. The Shurtliff opinion uses the term ditch, but there is little doubt that it used that word as a synonym for canal, and no doubt that the opinion illustrates an understanding of those terms that goes beyond the narrow irrigation-only purpose identified by appellants. ¶ 66 The notion of drinking from a canal would doubtless trouble the modern Utahn's sense of hygiene, but our ancestors apparently would not have had the same reaction. Perhaps their stomachs were cast iron. Or maybe their canal water was less susceptible to contamination. But whatever the reason, it seems clear that our predecessors around 1914 would have seen canals as a source of culinary and domestic water and not just irrigation water. ¶ 67 This history, dating from the 1860s to 1916, confirms that the community living in the Salt Lake Valley in 1914including the Crosgroves and Judge Armstrong, who wrote the Smith Decreewould have understood that canals were a source of culinary water. Thus, we interpret canal as used in the Crosgrove Deeds and the Smith Decree to include water channels that transport water for domestic use. The Water District's aqueduct therefore does not exceed the scope of its rights in Reaches 16, 17, or 19 merely because it transports culinary water.
¶ 68 The next issue is whether canal is limited to an open water channel or could refer to a pipeline. That depends, again, on the meaning of canal as used in the Crosgrove Deeds and the Smith Decree. We conclude that the term canal, in context, encompasses a closed pipeline. ¶ 69 To begin with, some definitions of canal refer specifically to pipes, while others do not. [37] Thus, the word could plausibly have been used in the Crosgrove Deeds and the Smith Decree to refer either to open or closed water channels. That ambiguity requires us to look to the context in which the word was used to determine its scope. Here, the key contextual cue is the common law presumption that parties to an easement anticipate increased future use and reasonable technological improvements. [38] Thus, absent express evidence of contrary intent, there is a firmly established background rule that an easement holder may make technological upgrades to its property, so long as they are not unreasonably burdensome to the servient estate. [39] We have previously discussed this rule in the context of canals and ditches in Moyle, 174 P.2d 148, and Valcarce, 961 P.2d 305. ¶ 70 In Moyle, a prescriptive easement holder sought to cement and waterproof its ditches, and the servient estate owner argued that the scope of the easement was limited to an unimproved, dirt ditch. 174 P.2d at 150. The court held that cementing the ditch was within the scope of the easement, explaining as follows: The common law of Utah presumes that... all parties concerned, knowing of the arid nature of this country, contemplated that at some future time the owner of the water would ... undertake to prevent[] wastage of water as the need arose for more efficient use of the limited water available.... If this was contemplated, and the common law of Utah presumes that it was, then ... it was contemplated that the ditch might be improved so as to save the water [and] that these further developments to conserve water could be made by the owner of the easement so long ... as the new developments were reasonably made and did not unnecessarily burden the land. Id. at 152. Our Valcarce decision confirmed and applied this same principle. In Valcarce, we relied on Moyle and upheld a trial court's finding that enclosing an open canal was a reasonable improvement that enhance[d] both the conveyance and the conservation of the water without materially changing the burden or adding any additional burdens to the subservient estate. 961 P.2d at 313. ¶ 71 Appellants point out that Valcarce and Moyle were both prescriptive easement cases that contained no language defining the scope of the property right. But we see no significant difference in this respect between prescriptive easement cases, in which there is no conveying document, and this one, in which the Crosgrove Deeds and the Smith Decree speak of canals but are silent as to whether the parties contemplated their future enclosure. Either way there is no express indication as to whether the parties contemplated a potentially enclosed canal or a permanently open one. ¶ 72 Under Valcarce and Moyle, then, there is a presumption that the parties to a Utah property conveyance for a canal understand and intend that an open canal could eventually be enclosed. Where a deed or decree creates a property right for a canal but is silent as to whether the canal must be open or may be enclosed, the property owner may therefore enclose the canal and install necessary improved structures without exceeding the scope of the property right, so long as (1) the improvements are performed reasonably, and (2) they do not materially alter the burden on the servient estate or on the land benefited by a restrictive covenant. See Valcarce, 961 P.2d at 312-13.
¶ 73 The district court applied the Valcarce rule and granted summary judgment, concluding as a matter of law that the enclosure of the canal is reasonable, given the need for modernization, and does not pose an excessive burden. As we explained in Moyle, however, reasonableness and the materiality of a burden are questions for the fact finder. 174 P.2d at 159. [40] The conclusion of reasonableness in Valcarce thus cannot directly translate as a matter of law to all cases involving enclosure of a canal. For example, the impact of the PVC-pipe enclosure in Valcarce may differ from that of the sixty-inch pipe and cement air valves in this case. Because these are questions of fact, the district court erred in its summary judgment analysis. ¶ 74 Summary judgment is warranted only where there are no genuine issues of material fact. UTAH R. CIV. P. 56(c). And in this context, genuine issues of fact exist if a reasonable mind could conclude that the Water District's improvements were performed unreasonably or that they materially altered the burden on the servient estate. [41] The district court erred in failing to apply this standard. Instead of evaluating whether a reasonable factfinder could rule in plaintiffs' favor, the court stated its own judgment on the matters of reasonableness and materiality. ¶ 75 That error would not require reversal if we could conclude that the same result would obtain even under the correct summary judgment standard. Unfortunately, the parties devote little attention to this issue on appeal. The briefs filed in our court focus on the question whether canal use encompasses a culinary pipeline, with only passing reference to the questions whether the cement air-valve structures and pipeline were reasonably constructed or whether they materially increase the burden on appellants' property. ¶ 76 Absent any thorough briefing on these questions, we are not in a position to consider affirming on the ground that summary judgment would have been appropriate under a correct legal standard. We therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings on this issue. Though the Water District's property rights in Reaches 16, 17, and 19 are broad enough to include a culinary pipeline, there remain fact-intensive questions that cannot be resolved as a matter of law on the record before us. We accordingly remand for further proceedings on the issues of whether the Water District's enclosure of the canal was reasonable and did not materially alter the burden on appellants' land. ¶ 77 On remand, the district court should evaluate whether a reasonable factfinder could find that the Water District's improvements were performed unreasonably or that they materially altered the burden on the servient estate. In evaluating those questions, the district court should consider (1) the increased impact on appellants' property resulting from the aqueduct's construction, (2) the relative costs of the possible methods of designing and locating the valve structures, and (3) all other facts and circumstances bearing on the issue. Moyle, 174 P.2d at 159. [42]