Court Opinion

ID: 9754783
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:13:48.193988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:57.824172
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
T12 The Dansies have petitioned for rehearing, claiming that our decision is confusing because it "does not provide guidance concerning the viability of 13 of the Final Judgment which requires the Dansies to pay the pro rata costs for the delivery of the water." We take this opportunity to resolve any such confusion.
T 13 In our 2008 opinion, we took pains in footnote 2 to explain that this payment obligation was a result of PSC regulation and that, with the termination of PSC jurisdiction over the water system, the Dansies' "rights and obligations under the Well Lease" would be determined "according to its plain language." Hi-Country Estates Homeowners Ass'n v. Bagley & Co., 2008 UT App 105, ¶ 12 n. 2, 182 P.3d 417, cert. denied, 199 P.3d 970 (Utah 2008). We then quoted the provision of the Well Lease providing the Dansies with a certain number of free hook-ups and a certain amount of free water. And in the foregoing Amended Memorandum Decision we reiterated that, "so long as the PSC does not exercise jurisdiction over the water system, the rights of the parties are as set forth by the plain language of the Well Lease." See supra 110. We expressed no opinion on the Association's contention that, in the future, the Dansies could never enjoy free hook-ups and free water under the Well Lease because the PSC would necessarily re-exert jurisdiction and prevent it. Rather, we noted that "statutes can be amended; regulations can be repealed; administrative policies and attitudes can change." Id.
14 Thus, our affirmance of paragraph 8 of the Final Judgment must be understood as being limited to its historical context and not as "adjudicat{ing] the rights of the parties or the enforceability of the Well Lease going forward." To be clear, the effect of the Final Judgment, as affirmed and explained in our 2008 opinion and in the above Amended Memorandum Decision, is that the Dansies are, going forward, entitled to their *1192contractual rights to free water and free hook-ups unless the PSC intervenes and determines otherwise. Given these observations, the petition for rehearing is denied.
15 I CONCUR: GREGORY K. ORME, Judge.