In re Water Rights In Big Laramie River

• Decision Date: 13 December 1920
• Docket Number: 781
• Citation: 192 P. 680,27 Wyo. 88
• Parties: IN RE WATER RIGHTS IN BIG LARAMIE RIVER. v. AKIN, ET AL PIONEER CANAL CO. ET AL
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

192 P. 680

27 Wyo. 88

IN RE WATER RIGHTS IN BIG LARAMIE RIVER.

PIONEER CANAL CO. ET AL v. AKIN, ET AL

No. 781

Supreme Court of Wyoming

December 13, 1920

27 Wyo. 88 at 121.

Original Opinion of October 4, 1920, Reported at: 27 Wyo. 88.

Rehearing denied.

BEARD Chief Justice. POTTER and BLYDENBURGH, JJ., concur.

OPINION

ON PETITION FOR RE-HEARING

BEARD Chief Justice.

The proceedings in error in this case were dismissed on motion of the defendant in error, Wyoming Development Company, October 4, 1920, 192 P. 680. The plaintiff in error has filed a petition for a rehearing upon that motion. It was held in the former opinion that seventy-three of the one hundred and eighty-eight defendants named in the petitions in error had not been served with summons in error within the time required by law, and that the necessary parties to give this court jurisdiction were not before the court; and for that reason the proceedings were dismissed. It is now contended that we were in error in dismissing the proceedings for the reason that the defendants not served are not necessary parties, and that the court can and should determine the controversy between the plaintiffs in error and those of the defendants in error who have been served, and that that can be done without effecting, injuriously, the rights of those not served. Counsel has cited authorities sustaining that proposition, and with which we agree. But we differ from him upon the question whether this is the kind of case coming within that rule. It was held in the former opinion "that all of the parties in the cause below are necessary parties to the proceedings in error in a case of this kind, being interested in the judgment." And we are still of that opinion. In the motions for a new trial, the denials of which are assigned as error in the petitions in error, it was alleged and claimed that the district court erred not only in determining the priority of rights, but also that it erred in its award of the quantity of water given to the respective parties. We think it is apparent that if upon a new trial plaintiffs in error, or any of them, should be given an earlier priority than that given by the judgment, it would necessarily injuriously effect the rights of those appropriators who by the judgment as it now stands are given priorities over plaintiffs in error. And if upon a new trial the plaintiffs in error or either of them should be awarded water for a...