Michel, Matter of

• Decision Date: 21 December 1981
• Docket Number: No. 81SA141,81SA141
• Parties: In the Matter of the Application for Water Rights of Reuben MICHEL and Ellen Irene Michel, in Weld County, Colorado. Reuben MICHEL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. FRONT RANGE LAND AND LIVESTOCK COMPANY, a Colorado Corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 74

638 P.2d 74

In the Matter of the Application for Water Rights of Reuben MICHEL and Ellen Irene Michel, in Weld County, Colorado Reuben MICHEL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. FRONT RANGE LAND AND LIVESTOCK COMPANY, a Colorado Corporation, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 81SA141.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

Dec. 21, 1981.

Reuben Michel, pro se.

Saunders, Snyder, Ross & Dickson, P. C., William J. Kirven, Denver, for defendant-appellee.

LOHR, Justice.

Reuben Michel, appearing pro se, appeals from a judgment of the water court for Water Division No. 1 denying his application for a water right for Warden Lake Reservoir. We affirm that judgment.

This litigation has a tangled procedural history. It began when Michel filed an application for a change of water right on April 12, 1972, requesting a change of point of diversion for a 3.48 c. f. s. water right decreed to Big Bend Ditch. That application, number W-2341, was dismissed without prejudice on January 14, 1976, on Michel's own motion.

On June 30, 1976, Michel filed an application for a water storage right for Warden Lake Reservoir, heading it with number W-2341. On November 1, 1977, Michel filed an amended application for a water storage right for Warden Lake Reservoir. The water clerk assigned number W-8281 to that amended application. Shortly thereafter, Michel moved to reinstate number W-2341 and to assign that filing number to the Warden Lake Reservoir application. His purpose was to give the Warden Lake Reservoir application the benefit of the 1972 filing date in W-2341. The motion to reinstate was denied by the court on May 17, 1979.

Notwithstanding the denial of the motion to reinstate number W-2341, Michel continued to file materials relating to the Warden Lake Reservoir application, number W-8281, and to an additional application for approval of a plan for augmentation, under filing number W-2341. On February 22, 1980, the application for a water storage right for Warden Lake Reservoir was tried to the water court, which then entered judgment denying the application.

Michel moved for a new trial as to the Warden Lake Reservoir claim on March 24, 1980, heading his motion with file numbers W-2341 and W-8281. The water judge denied the motion on that same day and in doing so noted that the motion could apply to W-8281 only.

On April 22, 1980, Michel filed a "Notice of Appeal Motion for New Trial" directed to the March 24, 1980, denial of his first motion for a new trial. Thereafter, Front Range Land and Livestock Company, which had filed a statement of opposition in W-8281, moved to strike the newly filed motion. On December 4, 1980, the water judge granted the motion to strike and also denied the motion for a new trial.

On January 2, 1981, Michel filed a notice of appeal, heading it with number W-2341, directed to the March 24, 1980, order, described as an order denying the application for Warden Lake Reservoir, and alleging that the motion for a new trial with respect to this order was heard and denied on December 4, 1980. This is the appeal now before us.

On May 26, 1981, Front Range Land and Livestock Company filed a motion in this court to dismiss Michel's appeal on the basis that the notice of appeal for W-2341 was not timely filed, the case having been closed by the dismissal of the application in 1976. Michel did not respond. W...