Fort Lyon Canal Co. v. National Sugar Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 05 April 1920
• Docket Number: 9613.
• Citation: 189 P. 252,68 Colo. 36
• Parties: FT. LYON CANAL CO. v. NATIONAL SUGAR MFG. CO. et al.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

189 P. 252

68 Colo. 36

FT. LYON CANAL CO. v. NATIONAL SUGAR MFG. CO. et al.

No. 9613.

Supreme Court of Colorado

April 5, 1920

Rehearing Denied May 3, 1920.

Error to District Court, Pueblo County; Samuel D. Trimble, Judge.

Petition for review and rehearing of decree adjudicating water rights by the Ft. Lyon Canal Company against the National Sugar Manufacturing Company and the Meredith Reservoir Company. To review judgment dismissing the petition for want of jurisdiction, petitioner brings error.

Affirmed.

Hillyer & Kinkaid, of Lamar, and Wm. H. Gibbert, of Denver, for plaintiff in error.

Dubbs &amp Vidal, of Denver, and Hartman & Ballreich, of Pueblo, for defendant in error National Sugar Mfg. Co.

John H Voorhees, of Pueblo, for defendant in error Lake Meredith Reservoir.

November 25, 1916, there was filed in the office of the clerk of the district court of Pueblo county a final decree in a certain statutory proceeding for the adjudication of priorities of water rights for irrigation in water district No. 14 wherein inter alia Lake Henry reservoir, owned by one of defendants in error, was decreed priority No. 10 as of 1891 and Lake Meredith reservoir, owned by the other, priority No. 11 as of March 9, 1898. November 21, 1918, plaintiff in error filed therein its petition for a review and rehearing of said decree 'with additional testimony.' It is alleged therein that petitioner is the owner of certain adjudicated water rights in water district No. 17, and the owner and claimant of others therein unadjudicated, all within the jurisdiction of the district court of Bent county, and that petitioner was not a party to said adjudication in water district No. 14. Such further facts are set forth as would entitle plaintiff in error to the relief demanded were its water rights in water district No. 14 and subject to adjudication in the district court of Pueblo county. The petition of plaintiff in error was set for hearing January 27, 1919. Prior to that date both defendants moved to quash the order and service of notice and dismiss the petition for want of jurisdiction. April 10, 1919, said motions were sustained, and from that judgment this writ is prosecuted. All of the water rights here involved are located in the general drainage area of the Arkansas river. For the purpose of statutory adjudications the district court of Bent county has exclusive jurisdiction in water district No. 17, and the district court of Pueblo county in water district No. 14.

BURKE, J. (after stating the facts as above).

Plaintiff in error claims a hearing and relief under section 3318, R S. 1908, which reads:

'The district court, or judge thereof in vacation, shall have power to order, for good cause shown, and upon terms just to all parties, and in such manner as may seem meet, a reargument or review, with or without additional evidence, of any decree made under the provisions of this act, whenever said court or judge shall find from the cause shown for that purpose by any party or parties feeling aggrieved, that the ends of justice will be thereby promoted; but no such review or reargument shall be ordered unless applied for by petition or otherwise within two years from the time of entering the decree complained of.'

The sole question requiring our consideration is whether the language 'any party or parties feeling aggrieved,' as used in said section, should be construed to include claimants in another water district who were not parties to the adjudication.

The words 'party aggrieved' may have different meanings depending entirely upon the connection in which they are used. The interpretation given them in one connection may throw no light upon their meaning as used in another. We confine ourselves therefore solely to the meaning of the language in question as used in this particular section of our adjudication statutes.

It is a cardinal rule of statutory construction that in case of ambiguity the intent of the Legislature is to be determined from the entire body of the statute. Section 3318, supra, is one of the sections relating to the subject of adjudication of priorities of right to the use of water for irrigation, a subject which is covered by sections 3276 to 3320, both inclusive, R. S. 1908. Sixteen of these sections contain language expressly limiting their operation to claimants in the particular water district in which the adjudication is had. Others are unmistakably so limited by implication. No one of these sections contains express language permitting a claimant outside of the district to participate in any respect in the adjudication. It thus appearing that these adjudication statutes are limited in their application to claimants in the particular water district wherein the proceeding is brought, had it been the intention of the Legislature to extend the operation of any section of the act to claimants outside said district, that intention would have been made expressly to appear, and not been left to implication or inference. $The identical question here under consideration has not heretofore been before this court for determination. The most that can be said is that side lights are thrown upon it by the following excerpts:

'The decrees are res judicata between those who were parties to, or participated in, the proceedings in which such decrees were rendered. * * * Ample provision is made for the protection of the rights of parties to proceedings in the same district, but none of the provisions relating to this class relate to appropriators in different districts, as between each other. * * * In order to protect their rights, as between each other, a period was given within which actions might be instituted to settle and adjust such rights. * * * Parties to adjudication proceedings in one district are bound to take notice of the rights adjudicated in other districts. * * * Unless an independent action is commenced and prosecuted to judgment, the rights of appropriators in different districts will not be settled in a common forum. * * * It is also urged that, because parties claiming rights to the use of water outside of the district in which adjudication proceedings are had may not participate in such proceedings, therefore the statutes in question [four-year limitation, sections 3313, 3314, R. S. 1908] must be limited to parties in the same water district. Instead of this being an argument in favor of such construction, we think it but strengthens the conclusion that these sections were intended to protect the rights of parties claiming water from the same source in different water districts if they saw fit, within the time prescribed, to assert their rights by some appropriate action. Such a provision was necessary to protect the rights of claimants to water in different districts because they could not be heard in a common forum, in a statutory adjudication.' Fort Lyon Canal Co. et al. v. A. V. S. B. & I. Co. et al., 39 Colo. 332, 90 P. 1023.

'No provision is made for those owning lands situate outside of the district to be made parties to the [adjudication] proceeding, although one and the same stream may be relied upon as the common source of supply, and the different interests may for this reason be antagonistic. * * * The act does not attempt to make such decrees

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