Court Opinion

ID: 9844554
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:04:33.976798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:37.337315
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent from the Court’s opinion. In my view, by the McCarran Amendment the United States did not waive its sovereign immunity to the payment of “filing fees” in the SRBA.
Let us not becloud what the issue is here. The “filing fees” the state seeks to charge the United States are not the usual modest fees for filing pleadings in a lawsuit. The “filing fees” at issue here exceeds TEN MILLION DOLLARS! Of this amount, eight and one-half million dollars represent “filing fees” for the adjudication of “reserved” rights, which are described in footnote 3 of the Court’s opinion.
Although the United States has not premised its appeal on the applicability of the filing fee requirement to these reserved rights, the “Adjudication Rules and Regulations” of the Department of Water Resources require payment of filing fees only by “[a]ll persons filing claims to water rights acquired under state law or amendments to claims to water rights acquired *128under state law.” Reserved rights by their nature are not acquired under state law.
What is at issue here is requiring the United States to fund involuntarily a significant part of the cost of the SRBA, that was occasioned by the dilemma created by the decision of this Court in Idaho Power Co. v. State of Idaho, 104 Idaho 575, 661 P.2d 741 (1988). In re Snake River Basin Water System, 115 Idaho 1, 764 P.2d 78 (1988), gives a brief history of how the SRBA came into being. The long and short of it is that the Idaho Power Company and the State of Idaho set the SRBA in motion. The United States is just along for the ride, pursuant to the McCarran Amendment.
By this decision, the Court rules that the United States must pay these “filing fees” to help the Idaho Power Company and the State of Idaho carry out the SRBA. The Court’s opinion says the “filing fees” are not “costs,” which are prohibited by the McCarran Amendment. “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Gertrude Stein, “Sacred Emily,” The Oxford Book of American Light Verse, p. 293 (W. Harmon ed., Oxford University Press 1979).
By the McCarran Amendment, the United States consented to joinder as a defendant in a “general adjudication.” In re Snake River Basin Water System, 115 Idaho at 6-9, 764 P.2d at 84-87. The plain reading of the McCarran Amendment indicates that the United States did not waive its sovereign immunity to the payment of costs. The Court’s attempted distinction between “filing fees” and “costs” would be more persuasive if these were, in fact, filing fees. These “filing fees” are nothing more nor less than the State’s costs for conducting the SRBA. By the McCarran Amendment, the United States waived its sovereign immunity only so far as being joined as a defendant, not so far as involuntarily paying the costs of the litigation.