Court Opinion

ID: 9613792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:19:59.81463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:31.827071
License: Public Domain

ROSE, Justice,
specially concurring, with whom McCLINTOCK, J., joins.
I would agree that the district court judgment must be affirmed—the appellants simply failed to establish the required elements of adverse possession. As stated by the district court, the appellants
“did not make use of said tract in such open, notorious and exclusive manner as to establish their right to the property by adverse possession . . . .”
I would also agree that appellants’ or their predecessors’ failure to assert their ownership of the subject property is evidence in support of that conclusion. Having disposed of the appeal on that ground, I fail to see why it is necessary to enter into a discussion of the doctrine of judicial estop-pel. Generally, the Supreme Court will not *919discuss or decide contentions not requisite to adjudication of the case. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co. v. City of Riverton, 70 Wyo. 84, 247 P.2d 660; Druley v. Houdesheldt, 75 Wyo. 155, 294 P.2d 351, reh. den. 296 P.2d 251; and Wallace v. Casper Adjustment Service, Wyo., 500 P.2d 72. I see no valid reason to stray from that policy in this case.
Finally, for the reasons stated in my dissent to the majority decision in Allen v. Allen, Wyo., 550 P.2d 1137, I cannot join in an opinion which asserts, even in dicta, that this court can reach the issue of judicial estoppel even though it was not raised or relied upon below.