Court Opinion

ID: 9619767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:32:47.35398+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:19.448778
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. There appears to be no authority for the main opinion’s interpretation of the amendment of Title 100-1-10, U.C.A. 1943 (now 73-1-10, U.C.A.1953) save its own ipse dixit. The law in Utah on ap-purtenancy of water to land, where shares of stock evidence the right of use, was, in my opinion, so confused as to induce the legislature to make certain that which was uncertain by giving full and separate ownership of water rights, apart from use on any particular land, to the holder of a *101certificate from a water company evidencing such right. Before the amendment, whether a certificate of water stock evidenced ownership of water apart from the land, was a matter of presumption and proof, as the main opinion makes it here, and it is difficult to see what purpose the amendment accomplished in the light of this decision. I believe the main opinion will come as a shock to the thousands of water users who have acquired their rights by purchase of shares in a water company, thinking that they acquired full ownership of the right to use the water, — not something less, which may involve a lawsuit where ownership may depend on presumption or the lack of it.