Court Opinion

ID: 9511268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:03:26.448331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:57.287895
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE LEAPHART
dissenting.
¶46 I dissent as to issue one. I agree with the stated rule that a district court may refer to the record in the original case when construing a decree which is obscure or ambiguous and that, where the language of a court’s decree is plain, there is no need “in construing it, to resort to pleadings or evidence.” Quigley v. McIntosh (1940), 110 Mont. 495, 511, 103 P.2d 1067, 1074. I do not, however, agree that the decree in question was plain, clear and unambiguous. To the contrary, the language of the amended judgment twice references the findings of fact and conclusions of law. As can be seen from the face of the document, the whole impetus behind issuing an “amended” judgment was so the District Court could make the judgment “comply with the Court’s Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.” Having stated this singular purpose for amending the judgment, a question arises as to whether an unrestricted easement for ingress and egress “complies” with the District Court’s prior findings and conclusions which were couched in terms of agricultural/grazing uses. The District Court correctly resolved this ambiguity as to “compliance” by referring to the 1983 findings of fact and conclusions of law. I would affirm.