Court Opinion

ID: 9864893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:16:01.657169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:29.240586
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Butler,
concurring.
I concur in the affirmance of the decree.
As I read the record, it is not disputed that the proceedings required by the statute to be taken to pass title to the land were duly taken, and that the treasurer’s deed is sufficient to pass title thereto. Nor is it disputed that the treasurer’s deed is sufficient to pass title to the certificates of stock in Twin Lakes Reservoir Company and *419Lake Meredith Eeservoir Company, provided the statute conferred upon the drainage district the power to assess the water stock- — a purely legal question. No disputed question of fact is before us.
Section 2188, Compiled Laws of 1921, provides: “Said bonds and the interest thereon shall be paid from an annual assessment upon the real property within the drainage district, and the real property within the drainage district shall be and remain liable to be assessed for such payments as herein provided.” .(Italics are mine.)
 Counsel for the plaintiff in error admit — and it is the law — that water rights for irrigation are real property. They say, however, that shares of stock are personal property. That is true of shares of stock in corporations, including irrigation corporations, organized for profit; but where the company is a mutual irrigation company, or, as here, a mutual reservoir company, organized, not for profit, but for the convenience of its members in the management of the irrigation system and in the distribution to them of water upon their lands in proportion to their respective interests, ownership of shares of stock in the corporation is but incidental to ownership of a water right, which is appurtenant to the land upon which the water is used. See Ireton v. Idaho Irrigation Co., 30 Idaho, 310, 317, 164 Pac. 687, 689. In Kendrick v. Twin Lakes Reservoir Co., 58 Colo. 281, 144 Pac. 884, we had occasion to pass upon the status of the capital stock of one of the companies involved here. We said: “The corporation is purely a mutual reservoir company, in which the capital stock stands for and represents the consumer’s interest in the reservoir, canal and water rights.” (Italics are mine.) The same is true of Lake Meredith Reservoir Company.
Moreover, a corporation may provide that the water rights represented by the stock shall be attached to the land and shall pass only with it. 3 Parnham, Water and Water Eights, p. 2001. The corporations in the present case provide that the water rights represented by *420their stock shall be used only in connection with the designated land.
Considering all the pertinent provisions of chapter 36, Compiled Laws of 1921, and the purpose sought to be accomplished, it is evident that the General Assembly intended that the bonds should be secured by a lien upon irrigated land. It is inconceivable that investors would purchase the bonds if they were secured by a lien on only dry land.
My conclusion is that the statute conferred upon the drainage district the power to assess the water stock, and that the treasurer’s deed conveyed, not only the land, but the water rights, including those represented by the shares of stock involved in the litigation; and that the trial court did not err in so holding.
Mr. Justice Bouck, Mr. Justice Holland and Mu. Justice Young concur herein.