Court Opinion

ID: 9857029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:12:48.039627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:54.287884
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
McQUADE, Justice.
In the petition for rehearing, appellants urge that their shares in the district were originally based upon relation of the number of acres owned by them to the number of acres within the irrigation district. The number of acres comprising respondent pseudo-irrigation district at its inception was computed in several ways, one of which described the area as including 908 acres; another, respondents’ compilation, computes the acreage at 1,014.375 acres. Appellants *488have not computed, for the benefit of the Court, the acreage included within the district at the time of its creation. Because of these variations, there has been confusion concerning the extent of the irrigation district. Nevertheless, appellants’ shares therein are 190, as found by the trial court.
Respondent district has never conducted its business in accordance with Idaho laws pertaining to irrigation districts; therefore, it is such a district in name only. Characteristically, it operates as a mutual company for the distribution of water, the legal title to which it possesses. It is for this reason the Court is not applying law relating to irrigation districts.
Appellants are entitled to receive the water to which their 190 shares entitle them.
Findings of the trial court do not disclose that appellants are receiving 190 pro rata shares of all water available. Therefore, the cause is reversed with directions to make a determination on the present record, or, if that is insufficient, upon further hearing, whether additional measuring or control devices are required to distribute the water accurately, and, if so required, to order them installed, in accordance with the provisions of I.C. § 42-903.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
TAYLOR, C. J., and SMITH, KNUDSON and McFADDEN, JJ., concur.