Court Opinion

ID: 9551709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:57:49.28944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:26.202350
License: Public Domain

TUCKETT, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. In the case of Morgan v. Utah Board of State Lands referred to in the majority opinion as the first Morgan case, we were concerned with certain language used in Section 65-1-18. In 1967, the legislature amended the above section. The section, as amended, contained the following sentence:
The board shall not issue more than one outstandiig lease for the same purpose on the same land.
We construed the language to mean that the legislature intended to adopt a policy of allowing but one lease for the extraction of oil from any particular tract of state land.
Since that decision was handed down in 1968, two general sessions of the legislature have taken place and that body has not seen fit to make any changes in the statute, even though the matter was called to the attention of the lawmakers.