Court Opinion

ID: 9623159
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:28:45.055802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:25.326989
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring specially in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the reversal of the summary judgment entered by the district court. However, since I believe summary judgment should have been directed for plaintiff appellant Nettleton, this separate analysis of the reasons for the reversal is necessary.
The plaintiff appellant’s complaint seeking a declaratory judgment alleged that the respondent director’s action, in attempting to administer Upper Reynolds Creek District 57-A and Lower Reynolds Creek District 57-J as though they were one district, was in violation of appellant’s rights.
Appellant was a water user in Upper Reynolds Creek District 57-A. The primary reason alleged for asserting that the action of the director was unlawful was that before the director could treat Reynolds Creek as one irrigation district, I.C. § 42-604 requires that the priority of appropriations of Reynolds Creek must be “adjudicated” by a court having jurisdiction of the controversy and of the parties. Appellant alleged in his complaint before' the district court and argues before this Court that the record discloses there was no such “adjudication” of Reynolds Creek, and therefore one of the critical requirements of I.C. § 42-604 for the administration of Reynolds Creek as a single irrigation district had not been met.
Secondly, appellant argued that insofar as I.C. § 42-607 authorizes the watermaster to shut off his undecreed constitutional use water right, which the parties have here stipulated that he had, in favor of decreed or licensed or permit rights, regardless of the priorities of his undecreed constitutional use water rights, that I.C. § 42-607 was unconstitutional.
In my view, the first issue is determinative of the appeal. However, in view of the extensive discussion of the constitutional issues by the majority opinion, some analysis of those issues is also necessary.
I
Regarding the first issue of whether the waters of Reynolds Creek have been “adjudicated”, the parties entered into a written stipulation which sets out that the plaintiff was the owner of certain valid water rights in Reynolds Creek which consisted of licensed rights, adjudicated rights and “unadjudicated constitutional use rights.” In addition, the parties stipulated to the following facts:
“(e) Copies of every final Order pertaining to any water of any part of said Stream are attached hereto. No final Order involves, nor does any combination of any final Orders involve, (1) every undecreed constitutional use right, adjudicated water right, or licensed rights to use waters of such stream, and/or (2) every parcel of land being irrigated with the use of waters of such stream.
“(f) The defendant acting through his agents and employees claims direction of the distribution of waters from said stream within the boundaries of Upper Reynolds, and has informed the plaintiff and has directed the said Water Master for Upper Reynolds that water of the district will be distributed to the plaintiff and other persons having water rights in Upper Reynolds as if both Upper Reynolds and Lower Reynolds were one district, and would distribute said waters in accordance with a certain Decree dated September 14, 1973, and referred to in paragraph (e) above. Further, that decreed, licensed and permit rights would receive water from said stream in preference to so-called constitutional or use rights existing with respect to said stream.
“(g) The parties to the action wherein the Judgment and Decree dated September 14, 1973 referred to above, included none of the owners of lands with water rights to waters of such stream located in Upper Reynolds or their predecessors; and some, but not all, of those parties-owning lands with water rights to waters *96of such stream, or their predecessors, situated in Lower Reynolds.” Tr., pp. 11-12, emphasis added.
In order to determine whether or not Reynolds Creek has been sufficiently “adjudicated” within the meaning of I.C. § 42-604 in order to justify administering the entire stream as though it were a single water district, it is necessary to look at the three decrees which have adjudicated water rights upon Reynolds Creek.
The first decree — the Bernard Decree— was entered on December 1, 1899. That decree merely stated that the plaintiff, J. C. Bernard, had a right to divert a certain number of inches of water from Reynolds Creek which was prior to the right of thirteen of the fourteen named defendants in the action, but subsequent to the right of the fourteenth. The decree did not set forth a priority date for the appropriation, nor did it list the amount of the appropriation or the location of the use of the water of any of the parties except those of the plaintiff Bernard and the defendant whose right was prior to Bernard’s, nor did it set any duty of water with regard to any of the claims.
Some of the requirements for an “adjudication” are set forth in Marsters v. United States, 236 F. 633 (CA 9, 1916), wherein the court held that an adjudication requires a court to determine both the priority dates and use and places of use of all of the appropriators, and that same principle was later recognized by this Court in Owen v. Nampa & Meridian Irrig. Dist., 48 Idaho 680, 285 P. 464 (1930). It is also essential for an adjudication that the duty of water be determined by the court. Farmers’ Cooperative Ditch Co. v. Riverside Irr. Dist., Ltd., 16 Idaho 525, 102 P. 481 (1909). Because it lacked many of these essential elements of a decree, the 1899 Bernard Decree could in no way form the basis for an “adjudication” of Reynolds Creek within the meaning of I.C. § 42-604.
The 1911 decree — the Gifford Decree— set forth the rights of eighteen individuals or partnerships to divert and use the waters of’ Upper Reynolds Creek for twenty-seven different appropriations of various amounts of water to various uses with priority dates ranging from 1864 to 1908. The record indicates that the Gifford Decree involved only water users on Upper Reynolds Creek, but the record does not indicate whether the 1911 Gifford Decree included all of the water users on Upper Reynolds Creek at the time that the decree was entered or the predecessors of all the present users on Upper Reynolds Creek. This decree was apparently the basis upon which the predecessor to the respondent director formed Water District 57-A on Upper Reynolds Creek. The decree fixed the duty of water regarding the various appropriations adjudicated by the decree.
The 1973 decree — the Benson Decree — set forth the rights of nine individuals or partnerships to eleven separate appropriations on Lower Reynolds Creek. These appropriators, according to the findings, have continuously appropriated a certain amount of water for agricultural purposes since the dates of their initial appropriation, which vary between 1879 and 1889.1 The stipula*97tion of facts in the record specifically sets out that the Benson Decree does not include any of the owners of lands with water rights located on Upper Reynolds, and some but not all of those parties owning lands with water rights to waters situated in Lower Reynolds Creek. The Benson Decree, in setting out the claims of those water users in Lower Reynolds Creek who were parties to it, described the number of inches of water in the appropriation, the land to which the water right is appurtenant and the date of appropriation. The decree does not make any determination of the duty of water and, based upon the description of water rights and those land descriptions from which the appurtenant acreages can be calculated, the duty of water appears to vary from as little as .44 inches per acre to as much as 1.14 inches per acre.2
No person named in any of these three decrees was a party to all of the three decrees; indeed, it may well be that no one is a party to any two of them (this cannot be determined without further evidence establishing the identity of persons with the same surname). The stipulation of facts upon which the present matter was submitted to the trial court, and upon which this Court must review the decision of the trial court, see Koron v. Myers, 87 Idaho 567, 394 P.2d 634 (1964); Arnett v. Throop, 75 Idaho 331, 272 P.2d 308 (1954); cf. I.R.C.P. 16, states that none of the decrees alone, nor all of the decrees in combination, involve “(1) every undecreed constitutional use right, adjudicated water right, or licensed rights to use waters of such stream, and/or (2) every parcel of land being irrigated with the use of waters of such stream.” Thus, based upon the record which was before the district court, there was no way of knowing how many other decreed water rights, licensed or permit water rights, and constitutional use water rights there are on Reynolds Creek which were not the subject of any of the three decrees. Based upon that record,- the district court erred in granting summary judgment for respondent because there was no factual basis upon which to support a finding that Reynolds Creek had been “adjudicated” within the meaning of I.C. § 42-604. In my opinion, the only legal conclusion which can be drawn from such a record is that there is no “adjudication” of Reynolds Creek justifying the administration of the stream as a single water district and that the trial court erred in not declaring that the director of the Department of Water Resources had no authority to impose the terms of the Benson Decree upon the users of water in the Upper Reynolds Creek Water District 57-A. This Court, in Mays v. District Court, 34 Idaho 200, 200 P. 115 (1921), has stated that such an attempt is prohibited in the following clear and unambiguous language:
“Except for that limited class of actions which are strictly in rem, a decree is not and cannot be made, conclusive, as to parties who are strangers to it. . The same principle applies to decrees rendered in proceedings to adjudicate rights to the use of water, they not being strictly in rem. . . . The contention that one’s right can be affected by a decree to which he was a stranger is repugnant to a fundamental principle of our jurisprudence, that no one will be judged until he has had a hearing. The operation of this *98principle cannot be defeated by the mere fact that it will put other parties to some added trouble or expense.” 34 Idaho at 207-208, 200 P. at 116.
In responding to the defendant respondent Higginson’s motion for summary judgment, the district court in its memorandum opinion never discussed the appellant’s primary argument that there had been no “adjudication” justifying the treatment of Reynolds Creek as one district, but decided the case on the issue of the constitutionality of I.C. § 42-604 and concluded that:
“[I]t is immaterial whether there are in fact two water districts or one. The water involved comes from the same source and the watermaster of the Upper Reynolds Creek District 57-A must recognize and make allowance for priorities in District 57-J (Lower Reynolds Creek) that are adjudicated, decreed or otherwise legally determined of record.” Tr., p. 33.
The district court’s reasoning in granting summary judgment for the defendant respondent is directly in conflict with the rule set down by this Court in Mays v. District Court, supra, that “one’s rights can[not] be affected by a decree to which he was a stranger . . . 34 Idaho at 207, 200 P. at 116.
The majority has reversed the judgment of the district court which granted summary judgment for the defendant respondent Higginson. However, I would go further than the majority and would direct the entry of summary judgment for the plaintiff appellant Nettleton because, based upon the record which was before the district court and the stipulated facts which are before this Court,3 there has been no “adjudication” within the meaning of I.C. § 42-604 which would justify either treating water districts 57-A and 57-J as one water district, as was the issue before the district court, or the consolidation of them as the defendant respondent Higginson attempted to do by his order of December 2, 1975.
II
The majority of the Court, having reversed the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment for respondent Higginson, in which I concur, has also passed upon several important constitutional issues and made certain comments disparaging the nature of constitutional use water rights, much of which was not necessary to decide this case and would better have been left unsaid. First, the Court goes to great lengths to point out the difficulty in determining the validity of constitutional use water rights and points out some of the practical problems which a watermaster faces in distributing water. These statements suggest, perhaps, that constitutional use water rights may not be a “significant property interest” even though a long line of this Court’s prior opinions has ascribed to them the status of real property which is certainly a “significant property interest.” E. g., Olson v. Bedke, 97 Idaho 825, 555 P.2d 156 (1976); Anderson v. Cummings, 81 Idaho 327, 340 P.2d 1111 (1959); Beecher v. Cassia Creek Irr. Co., 66 Idaho 1, 154 P.2d 507 (1944); Twin Falls Canal Co. v. Shippen, 46 Idaho 787, 271 P. 578 (1928); Bennett v. Twin Falls North Side Land & Water Co., 27 Idaho 643, 150 P. 336 (1915); Nelson Bennett Co. v. Twin Falls Land & Water Co., 14 Idaho 5, 93 P. 789 (1908); Ada County Farmers’ Irr. Co. v. Farmers’ Canal Co., 5 Idaho 793, 51 P. 990 (1898). See also I.C. § 55-101. The parties in this matter have stipulated that the appellant has valid, decreed, licensed and constitutional use water rights in Upper Reynolds Creek. I do not believe that it does the jurisprudence of this state any service to impugn constitutional use water rights when the record before this Court, by stipulation, establishes con*99clusively the existence of such water right in the appellant.
Secondly, the conclusions which the majority draws from the recent trilogy of cases from the United States Supreme Court interpreting the due process requirements under the United States Constitution as it relates to governmental deprivation of property rights are, in my opinion, clearly in error. Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972); Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U.S. 600, 94 S.Ct. 1895, 40 L.Ed.2d 406 (1974); North Georgia Finishing Inc. v. DiChem, Inc., 419 U.S. 601, 95 S.Ct. 719, 42 L.Ed.2d 751 (1975). The majority states at page 1051, ante, that:
“The United States Supreme Court, in Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 32 L.Ed.2d 556 (1972), held that except in ‘extraordinary circumstances’ where some valid governmental interest justifies the postponement of notice and hearing, due process requires an adversary proceeding before a person can be deprived of his property interest.” (Emphasis supplied).
In order to escape the obvious application of that rule to the actions of the watermaster under I.C. § 42-607, the majority opinion attempts to bring I.C. § 42-607 within the “extraordinary circumstances” exception to the Fuentes rule. I can find nothing in any of those United States Supreme Court cases to substantiate this position. The majority has selectively quoted from Fuentes to bolster its conclusion that this is an extraordinary situation. Ante at 1053. . A fuller quotation from Fuentes shows that it contains no support for the majority’s conclusion:
“There are ‘extraordinary situations’ that justify postponing notice and opportunity for a hearing. . . These situations, however, must be truly unusual. Only in a few limited situations has this Court allowed outright seizure without opportunity for a prior hearing. First, in each case, the seizure has been directly necessary to secure an important governmental or general public interest. Second, there has been a special need for very prompt action. Third, the State has kept strict control over its monopoly of legitimate force: the person initiating the seizure has been a government official responsible for determining, under the standards of narrowly drawn statute, that it was necessary and justified in the particular instance. Thus, the Court has allowed summary seizure of property to collect the internal revenue of the United States, to meet the needs of a national war effort, to protect against the economic disaster of a bank failure, and to protect the public from misbranded drugs and contaminated food.
“The Florida and Pennsylvania prejudgment replevin statutes [being considered in this case] serve no such important governmental or general public interest. They allow summary seizure of a person’s possessions when no more than private gain is directly at stake. The replevin of chattels, as in the present cases, may satisfy a debt or settle a score. But state intervention in a private dispute hardly compares to state action furthering a war effort or protecting the public health.” 407 U.S. at 90-93, 92 S.Ct. at 1999-2000 (emphasis added, footnotes omitted).
In Fuentes the court was considering replevin laws authorizing repossession of goods upon the ex parte application of a person claiming a right to them and posting a security bond. The court said that repossession under those statutes without notice and a hearing was a deprivation of property without due process of law. The court contrasted the summary seizure under those statutes against summary seizures upheld in other decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States by noting that the statutes being considered in Fuentes authorized summary seizure “when no more than private gain [was] directly at stake” while in the other cases “important governmental or general public interest[s]” had been served by the summary seizure, such as seizures where the public health is threatened, or furthering the war effort, or seizure to collect the internal revenues. Fuentes v. Shevin, supra. No important governmental or general public interest is secured by *100shutting the headgates of one- appropriator with a valid constitutional use water right for the benefit of some other water user. Shutting the headgates in this circumstance does no more than determine whether the appropriator with a constitutional use right shall have the property (water) or some other appropriator; this is exactly what was involved in Fuentes, Mitchell and North Georgia Finishing, which also dealt with prejudgment seizures of property. The dispute in this case, as in those cases, is a dispute between private parties.
Neither has the majority explained why there is a special need for prompt action in this case — had such a dispute arisen on a stream which was not part of a water district, no comparable statute would come into play favoring one water user over another and providing that an officer of an official or quasi-official agency shall shut off one user for the other’s benefit without notice and a hearing. Instead, litigation is allowed to run its course with the knowledge that if one user was wrongfully deprived of the right to water then he shall be entitled to damages against the other. Thus, I think it is clear that the case at bar does not involve an extraordinary situation within the meaning of the foregoing United States Supreme Court cases which justifies the postponement of notice and hearing, nor is it being decided under a “narrowly drawn statute” serving important governmental or general public purposes.
Moreover, as the Supreme Court of the United States explained in Mitchell, the fact that the officer who will make the decision to deprive the appropriator with a constitutional use water right of his right is an administrative officer rather than a judicial officer makes the procedure defective:
“[I]n Fuentes v. Shevin, . . . the constitutionality of the Florida and Pennsylvania replevin statutes was at issue. Those statutes permitted the secured installment seller to repossess the goods sold, without notice or hearing and without judicial order or supervision, but with the help of the sheriff operating under a writ issued by the court clerk at the behest of the seller. Because carried out without notice or opportunity for hearing and without judicial participation, this kind of seizure was held violative of the Due Process Clause. .
“The Florida law under examination in Fuentes authorized repossession of the sold goods without judicial order, approval, or participation. A writ of replevin was employed, but it was issued by the court clerk. As the Florida law was perceived by this Court, ‘[t]here is no requirement that the applicant make a convincing showing before the seizure,’ 407 U.S., at 73-74, 92 S.Ct., at 1991; the law required only ‘the bare assertion of the party seeking the writ that he is entitled to one’ as a condition to the clerk’s issuance of the writ. Id., at 74, 92 S.Ct., at 1991.” 416 U.S. at 615, 94 S.Ct. at 1904. (Emphasis added).
Even if this issue were one of those “extraordinary situations” envisioned by the Fuentes decision “when postponement of notice and a hearing is justified,” as the majority opinion concludes, ante at 1053, the statute, I.C. § 42-607, does not merely postpone the notice and hearing, but makes absolutely no provision for either notice or hearing. Therefore, assuming that the authority granted to the watermaster by I.C. § 42-607 were one of those “extraordinary situations”, the failure of the statute to provide for even a postponed notice and hearing is a fatal defect.
The majority, however, argues that the supplemental adjudication procedure set forth in I.C. § 42-1405, ante at 1052-1053, footnote 3, adequately protects the appropriator’s rights by giving him an opportunity to verify his constitutional use right. It is apparent that I.C. § 42-1405 does not provide for the expedited hearing discussed in Mitchell and North Georgia Finishing, but even if it did, the proceedings under that statute do not afford the appropriator with a constitutional use right the protection of an adjudication. The statute specifically provides that the water “right thus established shall not be deemed adjudicated, but prima facie merely *101. Furthermore, assuming for the sake of argument that the legislature has authority to confer jurisdiction on the district court to conduct a proceeding which will not be binding upon the parties to the proceeding, nevertheless, I.C. § 42-1405 requires the party requesting a supplemental adjudication to accept “ . . .as binding upon him ... the said [prior] decree and the findings of fact and conclusions of law upon which it is based” even though he was not a party to that decree. This flies in the face of due process. McKinney v. Alabama, 424 U.S. 669, 96 S.Ct. 1189, 47 L.Ed.2d 387 (1976); Reynolds Irrigation District v. Sproat, 65 Idaho 617, 151 P.2d 773 (1944). To condition an appropriator’s access to the court upon his acceptance of the findings of a decree to which he was not a party is a violation of due process of law in those circumstances where the party was not a successor in interest to a party to the decree or otherwise stands in relationship to some party to the prior decree so that binding him by that decree would not prejudice his rights. E. g., in Carrington v. Crandall, 65 Idaho 525, at p. 533, 147 P.2d 1009, at p. 1012 (1944), the Court stated: “The [water] decree . will not be a bar to any person who is not a party or privy to this action.” See also McKinney v. Alabama, supra; Reynolds Irrigation District v. Sproat, supra; Scott v. Nampa & Meridian Irrig. Dist., 55 Idaho 672, 45 P.2d 1062 (1934); Inman v. Round Valley Irrig. Co., Ltd., 41 Idaho 482, 238 P. 1018 (1925). As this Court said 55 years ago in the case of Mays v. District Court, 34 Idaho 200, 200 P. 115 (1921), in discussing I.C. § 42-1405, which was then codified as C.S. 7036:
“If the remedy provided by sec. 7036 were intended to be exclusive, the section would be clearly unconstitutional. No person may be deprived of his property without due process of law. Const., 1,13. Due process of law requires that one be heard before his rights are adjudged. Cooley’s Const. Lim., p. 506. Except for that limited class of actions which are strictly in rem, a decree is not, and cannot be made, conclusive, as to parties who are strangers to it. . The same principle applies to decrees rendered in proceedings to adjudicate rights to the use of water, they not being strictly in rem. . . . The contention that one’s rights can be affected by a decree to which he was a stranger is repugnant to a fundamental principle of our jurisprudence, that no one will be judged until he has had a hearing. The operation of this principle cannot be defeated by the mere fact that it will put other parties to some added trouble or expense.” 34 Idaho at 207-208, 200 P. at 116.
Fifty-five years ago this Court said that the procedures outlined in I.C. § 42-1405 would clearly be unconstitutional were they mandatory, but today the majority points to these same procedures as a means by which an appropriator may verify his constitutional use right and protect himself. If this is, as the majority suggests, the appropriator’s only practical means of protecting his water right, then it is mandatory in a very practical sense, and I believe, as did the Court in Mays, that it is clearly unconstitutional.
Furthermore, even if the appropriator with a constitutional use water right initiates proceedings under I.C. § 42-1405, he has not, as the majority suggests, “thereby reap[ed] the protective benefits of I.C. § 42-607 himself.” Ante at 1053. That is because the statute provides:
“The court by its decree in said action shall determine the rights of said plaintiff in accordance with the proof submitted but subject to the terms of the original decree hereinbefore referred to: provided, that the right thus established shall not be deemed adjudicated, but prima facie merely, and may be attacked by suit brought in a court of competent jurisdiction at any time by any person deeming himself aggrieved thereby.” (Emphasis added).
The “protection” that the majority suggests that I.C. § 42-1405 gives to an appropriator who initiates proceedings under that section is no protection at all. Not only must he accept every right decreed in a proceeding to which he was not a party, but the *102“rights” which he obtains from I.C. § 42-1405 are not an “adjudication” and may be attacked at any time by any person deeming himself aggrieved.
Ill
In view of the fact that the judgment of the district court has been reversed and the cause remanded to the director for further hearings, I agree with the statements which the Court makes on p. 1055, ante, indicating some of the things that the director should consider in determining whether Reynolds Creek can be consolidated into, or operated as one water district. When the director conducts those hearings upon remand, it should become evident to him that the three decrees do not constitute an adjudication because they do not list all or substantially all of the present appropriators from Reynolds Creek, nor do they catalog all or substantially all of the present appropriations of water from Reynolds Creek. It is my belief that when the director conducts the hearing upon remand it will become apparent to him that the 1899, 1911 and 1973 decrees are not useful tools for the management and distribution of the waters of Reynolds Creek in 1976, because of possible changes in water rights since the times the decrees were entered due to adverse possession, abandonment, forfeiture, problems of return flow, transfer of rights to different parcels of land, and additional acquisition of constitutional use rights and, most importantly, the fact that there are too many appropriators not party to each decree who are not bound by its terms under our decisions in Carrington v. Crandall, supra, and Mays v. District Court, supra. Thus, I believe the only reasonable result which can come from such a hearing will be a determination that there is a need for a general adjudication of Reynolds Creek pursuant to I.C. §§ 42-1406 et seq., as suggested by the majority, and in which I heartily concur.

. The 1973 decree provides a good example of a decree which should not be binding upon someone who was not party to that decree because it contains a recitation of the acquisition of water rights which strains credulity. According to that decree, each of the parties whose water right was established in that decree “did appropriate and divert from the waters of Reynolds Creek” as of a date as early as May 21, 1879, or as late as December 24, 1889, a certain number of miner's inches of water, “and did appropriate the same for irrigation, domestic and stock purposes, and that since the date of appropriation, said water has been continually used to a beneficial use on [the land thereafter described].” The parties to the 1973 decree do not claim to be the successors in interest to appropriators who acquired water rights before 1890, but claim to have acquired the rights themselves and to have continually applied the water to beneficial use since the acquisition of the rights. Unless the parties to this decree were all centenarians, it seems unlikely that they could substantiate these claims, particularly if they were claiming to have acquired water rights themselves thirty or forty years before they were born. It is a violation of due process to preclude someone in Nettleton’s position from contesting claims such as these when he was not a party to the decree in which they were established. That does not mean that the parties to the 1973 *97decree could not establish that they held water rights with priorities as early as those recited in the decree; it only means that no one who was not a party to that decree should be bound by such a recitation of rights, particularly if it would have been impossible for the parties to the 1973 decree to have acquired their rights in the manner they claimed they did.

. The latter appropriation would appear to be in violation of I.C. § 42-220 which limits the right to use more than one inch per acre (i. e., no more than one second foot of water for each 50 acres of land) “unless it can be shown to the satisfaction of the department ... in granting such license, and to the court in making such decree, that a greater amount is necessary . . . .” I.C. § 42-220. There is no such finding in the Benson Decree, nor can we tell whether this is the only appropriation violating this statute because the acreage to which some of the water rights are appurtenant are not readily calculable from the land descriptions in the decree.

. I do not believe this Court should augment that record by taking judicial notice of factual materials from the records in the office of the director, for two reasons. First, we should review the trial court’s actions based upon the record which was before it. Secondly, to take judicial notice of the records of one of the party litigants and use that against the other party is a questionable practice.