Court Opinion

ID: 9552715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:15:31.063558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:28:43.945415
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
specially concurring.
Disposition of this case invokes consideration of three relevant statutes and the comprehensive analysis and determination of Wyoming law as afforded by Wheatland Irrigation District v. McGuire, Wyo., 537 P.2d 1128 (1975).
Those statutes are:
(1) “Nothing in this act shall be construed to relieve an owner or owners of any reservoir, dam or diversion system of any legal duties, obligations or liabilities incident to their ownership or operation of or any damages resulting from the leakage or overflow of water or for floods resulting from the failure or rupture of the fill or structure for such works.” Section 41-3-317, W.S.1977.
(2) “(a) As used in this act unless the context otherwise requires:
* * * * * *
“(v) ‘Diversion system’ means any canal, ditch or pipeline with a carrying capacity in excess of fifty (50) cubic feet of water per second of time; * Section 41-3-307, W.S.1977, Cum.Supp. 1985.
(Both enacted by Ch. 120, S.L. of Wyoming 1977.)
*1388(3) “The owner or owners of any ditch for irrigation, or other purposes, shall carefully maintain the embankments thereof so that the water of such ditch may not flood or damage the premises of others.” Section 41-5-101, W.S.1977, derived from territorial legislation in 1876.
Also involved is the earlier reservoir liability statute, § 41-46, W.S.1957, repealed by Ch. 120, S.L. of Wyoming 1977 which enacted § 41-3-317, W.S.1977.
I would submit that the court now clearly misunderstands or misinterprets the legislative intent as incorporated in the 1977 legislation.
Contendedly, at least, the legislature in recodification and amendatory legislation always considers the course of prior litiga-tive conclusion when involved in the subject of proposed legislation.
Consequently, when the legislature came to consider the 1977 statute, it had the text of § 41-46, W.S.1957, as defined by Wheat-land Irrigation District v. McGuire, supra, wherein the absolute-liability phraseology was tempered by the exceptions provided by the case construction as determining that differing from an ordinary negligence status the burden of the defendant facility owner upon water escape was an affirmative defense:
“ ‘The defendant can excuse himself by showing that the escape was owing to the plaintiffs default or perhaps that the escape was a consequence of vis major or the act of God.’ ” 537 P.2d at 1133, quoting from McDonald, The Rule in Rylands vs. Fletcher and its Limitations, 57 Am.L.Rev. 549, 554.
The present decision of this court implicates question about the intent of the legislature to retain the law of Wheatland Irrigation as the rule in the dam-water-escape cases, which result is demonstrably contrary to legislative intent.
Having clouded the liability rules derived from § 41-46, W.S.1957, as enunciated by Wheatland Irrigation, the court then goes further to deny plain language which was intended by the legislature to bring the diversion systems into the ambient of the dam-failure-liability status. This second mistake follows by further analysis from the first erroneous construction of the statute. The legislature seems to have a continuing problem with judicial interpretation in water cases. See my dissent to denial of rehearing in State, Board of Land Commissioners v. Lonesome Fox Corporation, Wyo., 714 P.2d 783, 784 (1986).
The court by the decision disregards the phraseology and intent of § 41-3-317, from the legislative enactment which defined diversion systems to be included in the reservoir or dam classification for liability purposes in order to afford the differentiation from the smaller ditch of under 50 cubic feet per second capacity. There is no question in this case that the facility involved in the damage to plaintiff was a defined diversion system and would consequently come within the coverage of § 41-3-317.
The court thus misinterprets the legislative intent and thereby retains the diversion system under case law relating to ditches rather than major diversion systems as the differentiation was clearly intended by the 1977 enactment, Ch. 120, S.L. of Wyoming 1977.
The substantive difference is the question of burden of proof, wherein as to the dam the owner has the affirmative burden in order to establish a defense in a strict-liability mode for the defense as contrasted with the standard applied to ditches, now last found in Pine Creek Canal No. 1 v. Stadler, Wyo., 685 P.2d 13 (1984), which case enunciates the rule of liability as the burden for plaintiff with a case status comparable to the normal negligence proceedings.
The confusion of theory by the court in this case will occasion serious future problems in the analysis and resolution of litigation involving either a dam break or a diversion system failure.
I concur in result with the court, however, by accepting the determination of the trial court that the damage devolved from an act of God by virtue of the historically high snowpack for the area and the conse*1389quent flooding which resulted as an uncontrolled event of nature.
I would hold that defendants met their burden of proof for the demonstration of the affirmative defense, pursuant to the teachings and critera of Wheatland Irrigation District v. McGuire, supra.