Court Opinion

ID: 9546212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:11.284428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:08.890347
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Justice,
specially concurring.
The sundry options and agreements regarding the Chapman AUMs are illegal. The Redlands, Wyckoffs and Malmbergs attempted to circumvent federal law. While the parties’ culpability may differ in degree, none of them came to court with clean hands.
The AUMS involved here were obtained by Redland from Chapman and were attached to the Bar K-B Ranch. The Red-lands attempted to illegally transfer the AUMS to Wyckoffs on July 21, 1977. Wyckoffs, however, were barred by law from holding the Chapman AUMS because they never controlled qualified base property, which is required under federal grazing law. 43 U.S.C.S. §§ 315 et seq. Grazing rights (AUMS) cannot be held in a vacuum, and can only be held in conjunction with qualified base property.
The code of federal regulations provide in part:
“(e) Terms and conditions. The issuance and continued effectiveness of all regular licenses and permits will be subjected to the following terms and conditions: “1) The possession or control by the applicant, licensee, or permittee, of feed and forage supplies adequate, with the authorized Federal range use, to support his licensed or permitted livestock for a full year-round operation.
* * * * * *
“(8) If a licensee or permittee loses ownership or control of:
“(1) All or part of his base property, the license or permit, to the extent it was based upon such lost property, shall terminate immediately without further notice from the District Manager * 4 43 C.F.R. 4115.2-1.
The dealings between Redlands, Wyck-offs and Malmbergs are tainted with the illegal attempt to sever the Chapman AUMS from its supporting or base property. The parties attempt to sever the AUMS from the base property amounted to treating them as an investment by trading them on the market for profit. This is contrary to the spirit and letter of the law.
The attitude of the local office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) encouraged the parties (Redlands, Wyckoffs, and Malmbergs) to violate the law. The BLM knew that the agreements were illegal, but pretended that nothing irregular had happened.
No authority need be cited for the proposition that courts do not enforce illegal agreements. The trial court and the majority of this court dealt with the problem of the illegal contracts by ignoring them, or pretending that the Redland-Wyckoff-Malmberg agreements were legal, in effect, creating a fiction.1
*1042As a matter of expediency, in order to conclude litigation, I will also indulge in this fiction and concur in the result determined by the majority. However, I disagree with that portion of the majority opinion that purports to determine ownership of the AUMS. I do not think a state court has jurisdiction to make that determination.

. Fiction of law: "An assumption or supposition of law that something which is or may be false is true * * * an assumption, for purposes of justice, of a fact that does not or may not exist. * * *” Black’s Law Dictionary 562 (5th Ed. 1979).
"It [fiction] is the creature of the court, and is moulded to purposes of justice, according to the *1042view which its inventors have taken of its capacity to effect those purposes.” Marshall, Cr., J., Livingston v. Jefferson, 15 Fed.Cas. (No. 8411) 660, 663 (1811).