Opinion ID: 783261
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Clear and Convincing Evidentiary Standard

Text: 79 Clear and convincing evidence is required to prove that a water right has been forfeited or abandoned. See Town of Eureka v. Office of State Eng'r, 108 Nev. 163, 169, 826 P.2d 948, 952 (1992). (Stating that [b]ecause the law disfavors a forfeiture, the State bears the burden of proving, by clear and convincing evidence, a statutory period of non-use.). Clear and convincing evidence is that beyond a mere preponderance of the evidence. Orr Ditch, 256 F.3d at 947 (citing Albert H. Wohlers & Co. v. Bartgis, 114 Nev. 1249, 969 P.2d 949, 957 n. 4 (1998)). The Tribe alleges that the State Engineer failed to properly apply the clear and convincing evidentiary standard in findings regarding non-use of water in six of the applications addressed in Ruling on Remand No. 4798 and four of the seven applications addressed in Ruling on Remand No. 4825. In these rulings, the Engineer rejected the Tribe's evidence showing that certain water rights had not been exercised for substantial periods and that those rights had been forfeited or abandoned. 80 The Tribe alleges that the State Engineer's rulings on four of the applications in Ruling on Remand No. 4825 (for all seven applications in Ruling on Remand No. 4825, the State Engineer's approval of the proposed transfer was in part based on the intrafarm exemption) incorrectly applied the clear and convincing evidentiary standard of proof. This argument relies in part on our decision in Orr Ditch, in which we stated that [d]espite the limitations imposed by the current state of the record, it may be appropriate for us to comment on what we do have before us. We are concerned that the Engineer may have misunderstood the `clear and convincing evidence' standard necessary to establish forfeiture.... He appears to have demanded proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and perhaps even more than that. See Orr Ditch, 256 F.3d at 947. 81 In Orr Ditch, however, we rested our holding in part on the fact that the Engineer's ruling did not refer to any contrary evidence. Orr Ditch, 256 F.3d at 947. By contrast, for all of the findings to which the Tribe objects, the State Engineer cites contrary evidence, usually testimony from the applicant. 82 Although the Tribe refers to Orr Ditch to assert that the Engineer's rejection of their protests can only be explained by the Engineer's failure to apply the clear and convincing standard of proof, the Tribe's argument in fact appears to be directed at the State Engineer's failure to make adequate findings with respect to each parcel of land in each application. The Tribe alleges that the same pattern of rejecting the Tribe's claims of forfeiture and abandonment based on findings that the Tribe's evidence of non-use of water was not sufficient to meet the clear and convincing standard of proof is repeated, without specifying which evidence was considered improperly with respect to each application. 83 Recalling that the State Engineer's decisions are prima facie correct, and that we uphold the Engineer's factual findings if supported by substantial evidence and his legal conclusions if not contrary to law, see Alpine V, 291 F.3d at 1071, we conclude that the State Engineer's findings on the photographic evidence were supported by substantial evidence and that he correctly applied the clear and convincing standard of proof. 84 The comparison with the evidence in Orr Ditch, which included aerial photographs similar to the ones used by the Tribe in this case, also suggests that the Tribe may be concerned with the Engineer's treatment of its photographic evidence when he made his evidentiary rulings. As a preliminary matter, in his General Finding of Facts, the Engineer discounted the aerial photographs used by the Tribe's witnesses for making land use determinations on the existing place of use from 1948 through the date of filing the applications. The State Engineer explained that the photographs fail to sufficiently demonstrate[] to the satisfaction of the State Engineer to be accurate, and that the scale of many of the photographs is far too small for making land use determinations as critical as those being made here. Nev. State Eng'r Ruling No. 4798 at 30-31. Thus, as the Engineer further explained, these photographs will be given weight which recognizes the possibility of a fairly significant margin of error. Therefore, the State Engineer finds that the greatest weight as to land use determinations will be given to those descriptions provided by the applicants at the original administrative hearings. Id. at 31. 85 The Engineer provided substantive reasons for this determination — some of the areas in dispute apparently amount to the size of a mechanical pencil point on the photos, making it impossible for the Engineer to determine how the water was used on the land. The Engineer acknowledged that some of the photographs are of higher quality — especially the 1948 and 1977 photographs, which use a better scale — yet he stated that he would give minimal weight to all of the aerial photos in his assessment of the applications and as a general rule would accept the applicant's testimony as worthy of greater evidentiary weight. In many applications, these aerial photos provide the Tribe's only evidence of non-use. 86 Although this presumptive blanket determination giving greater weight to the applicants' testimony over photographs submitted by the Tribe could be interpreted as failing to make the necessary individualized findings with respect to each parcel, in most of his individual rulings on the applications, the Engineer did make specific findings regarding the quality of the photos in the case before him, and explicitly balanced the quality of this evidence with the evidence presented by the applicants. Furthermore, due to our deferential standard of review of the Engineer's findings, we conclude that the Engineer's blanket determination downgrading the relative weight of the photographic evidence was supported by sufficient justification and substantial evidence.