Court Opinion

ID: 9514408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:49:15.262213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:17.167313
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Chief Justice
(concurring in result).
[¶ 34.] I agree that Intervenor had not yet obtained any prescriptive rights against Landowners. However, for reasons stated below I concur in result.
[¶ 35.] I. Consent Judgment
[¶36.] The majority opinion states that Intervenor’s consent was not needed before the trial court could approve the consent judgment entered into between Landowners and County. As authority to support this proposition, it cites to the United States Supreme Court case of Local Number 93 v. City of Cleveland, 478 U.S. 501, 528-30, 106 S.Ct. 3063, 3078-79, 92 L.Ed.2d 405, 427-28 (1986). This Court is not bound, nor should it be bound, by this United States Supreme Court opinion. See People v. Gillespie, 136 Ill.2d 496, 145 Ill.Dec. 915, 557 N.E.2d 894, 897 (1990) (stating that “State courts are not required to follow United States Supreme Court precedent unless the result therein is mandated by the Constitution of the United States.”) (citing Harris v. Rivera, 454 U.S. 339, 344-45, 102 S.Ct. 460, 463-64, 70 L.Ed.2d 530, 535 (1981)).
[¶ 37.] Intervenor entered into this action as a matter of right. SDCL 15-6-24(a). This statute provides in relevant part:
Upon timely application anyone shall be permitted to intervene in an action:
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(2) When the applicant claims an interest relating to the property or transaction which is the subject of the action and he is so situated that the disposition of the action may as a practical matter impair or impede his ability to protect that interest, unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by existing parties.
Intervenor was permitted to intervene in this case precisely because its interests were not adequately protected by the original parties. The trial court recognized that Intervenor should have been made an original party, and was not originally joined as a party only because Landowners intentionally chose to *635exclude it and its members from the litigation.
[¶ 38.] By intervening as a matter of right under SDCL 15-6-24(a), Intervenor became a real party to the action. Baldridge v. Reid, 88 S.D. 374, 376-77, 220 N.W.2d 532, 534 (1974). As such, it became entitled to all the rights, benefits, and privileges of the originally named parties. This Court has held that it was improper to allow a voluntary dismissal of a case pursuant to SDCL 15-6-41(a)10 when the intervenor did not sign the stipulation and agreement to allow dismissal. Id. This was true even though the intervenor’s claim involved issues apart from the original parties’ claims, and the interve-nor would not have been bound by the dismissal. Id.
[¶ 39.] Likewise, this Court has held that when an intervenor was a party to a case, that case could not be dismissed after the original parties settled their dispute even though such a dismissal would not have been an adjudication of any of the issues raised by the intervenor. Schoniger v. Logan, 40 S.D. 30, 35, 166 N.W. 226, 228 (1918). These eases reflect the strong policy of this Court not to allow the original parties in an action to effectively eliminate an intervenor’s claims when that intervenor has been made a party to the action as a matter of right.
[¶ 40.] Clearly, once an intervenor is made a party, the original parties should not have the opportunity to exclude the intervenor once again by entering a consent judgment without the intervenor. It has been noted that “ ‘the purpose of intervention is to settle in one action and by a single judgment the whole controversy among the persons involved[.]’ ” Pine Lawn Bank & Trust Co. v. City of Pine Lawn, 365 Mo. 666, 285 S.W.2d 679, 684 (1956) (citation omitted). This Court has also observed that “[t]he purpose of intervention is to obviate delay and multiplicity of suits by creating an opportunity to persons directly interested in the subject matter to join in an action or proceeding already instituted.” Jackson v. Board of County Comm’rs, 76 S.D. 495, 502, 81 N.W.2d 686, 690 (1957). It stands to reason that to fulfill the purpose of intervention and more importantly to protect the rights of all the parties to an action, intervenors should be parties to a consent judgment.
[¶ 41.] I assert that it was an error for the trial court to approve the consent judgment without the consent of Intervenor.
[¶ 42.] II. Prescriptive Easement
[¶ 43.] I only concur in result because I disagree with the majority’s analysis of when the prescriptive period begins to run.
[¶ 44.] The opinion cites Heezen v. Aurora County, 83 S.D. 198, 200, 157 N.W.2d 26, 31 (1968), for the proposition that the statute does not begin to run until the landowner’s land is damaged by the overflow water. It also relies on 54 CJS Limitations of Actions § 181, which states in relevant part: “Where obstructions erected by defendant, or other acts or omissions by him, not of themselves unlawful as to plaintiff, cause water to overflow plaintiff’s land, a cause of action accrues and the statute begins to run when plaintiff sustains damage from the overflow, not when the obstructions are erected or the other acts or omissions occur[.]” (Emphasis added.) In the present case, Intervenor had erected no structure nor done anything to cause water to overflow Landowners’ land. The majority improperly focuses on the nature of the claimed prescriptive easement as an easement to flood Landowners’ land. However, Intervenor is not claiming a right to flood, but rather is claiming a right to be free from drainage from Landowners’ land.
[¶ 45.] The cases that the majority opinion cites in favor of its position involve a situation in which a defendant performed some affirmative act to flood the plaintiff’s land. In Heezen, Aurora County was claiming a prescriptive right to flood Heezen’s land. 83 S.D. at 200, 157 N.W.2d at 28. Heezen claimed that the manner in which the county “graded, maintained and improved” a road diverted water from one watershed to Crystal Lake which then overflowed and flooded Heezen’s land. Id. The majority also cites Schmutte v. State, 147 Neb. 193, 22 N.W.2d *636691, 695 (1946), a case which like this one involved a culvert. In Schmutte, however, the issue involved was again whether or not the defendant had obtained a prescriptive right to flood, not whether or not there was a prescriptive right to be free from drainage.
[¶ 46.] This Court recognizes the principle that “the right to be free from the flow of surface waters may be acquired by the ser-vient tenement by prescription.” Kougl v. Curry, 73 S.D. 427, 431, 44 N.W.2d 114, 116 (1950). The Court in Kougl also noted that the law of prescription can extinguish the natural servitude that allows an upper property owner to discharge surface water over the lands of a lower property owner. Id. This is the nature of the right that Interve-nor in the present case is claiming and thus the majority should recognize that such a separate right exists.
[¶ 47.] I therefore disagree and disassociate myself from the majority’s characterization of this issue as a right to flood Landowners’ land. The issue here is: When did the prescriptive period begin to run for Interve-nor’s right to be free from drainage off of Landowners’ land? I concur in the ultimate result reached in the majority holding that there is no indication that the twenty-year prescriptive period has yet run. For Inter-venor to have extinguished through prescription Landowners’ rights to drain water onto Intervenor’s land, Intervenor’s use of the road must have been “adverse” to Landowners’ right. Kougl, 73 S.D. at 431-32, 44 N.W.2d at 116. The first adverse use by Intervenor did not occur until the water backed up onto Landowners’ land within the last year or possibly two years. There is no other evidence of a time in which Intervenor relied on the road and the original culvert to be free from drainage from Landowners’ land.
[¶ 48.] III. Dismissing Certain Claims as a Matter of Law
[¶ 49.] I agree with and join Justice SABERS’ concurrence in result.

. SDCL 15-6-41 (a)(1)(b) states that a plaintiff can voluntarily dismiss an action "by filing a stipulation of dismissal signed by all parties who have appeared in the action.”