State ex rel. Office of State Eng'r v. Boyd
| Decision Date | 24 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. A-1-CA-36291,A-1-CA-36291 |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW MEXICO ex rel. OFFICE OF THE STATE ENGINEER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JAMES SCOTT BOYD, Defendant-Appellant, and ELEPHANT BUTTE IRRIGATION DISTRICT, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
This decision of the New Mexico Court of Appeals was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Refer to Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decisions. Electronic decisions may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official version filed by the Court of Appeals.
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF DOÑA ANA COUNTY
Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney General
Eric Grant, Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Mark R. Haag
Washington, DC
for Appellee United States
Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General
Gregory C. Ridgley, General Counsel
Richard Allen, Special Assistant Attorney General
Sonny Swazo, Special Assistant Attorney General
for Appellee State of New Mexico ex rel. Office of the State Engineer
Las Cruces, NM
for Appellee Elephant Butte Irrigation District
Robert S. Simon
Albuquerque, NM
for Appellant
{1} James Scott Boyd (Boyd), individually and as personal representative or receiver and heir to the Estate of Nathan Boyd, appeals the district court's 2017 Order striking his Form B Notice of Intent to Participate (Form B notice) in a stream system issue regarding surface water rights in the Lower Rio Grande stream system. In reaching its decision, the district court determined that Boyd's claims to participate in the stream system issue were barred by res judicata. We affirm.
{2} This appeal arises out of a proceeding in the course of a general adjudication of water rights in the Lower Rio Grande Basin (Lower Rio Grande Adjudication). See NMSA 1978, § 72-4-17 (1965) (). Boyd previously made claims to water rights in the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication in a 2012 expedited inter se proceeding. In that proceeding, the district court found that Boyd's asserted rights were based on existing works that he does not own and over which he has not exercised control for over a century. It also addressed his claims to the water based in the "Mendenhall Doctrine[,]" see State ex rel. Reynolds v. Mendenhall, 1961-NMSC-083, 68 N.M. 467, 362 P.2d 998, and his claims of fraud. The district court also found that Boyd's claims were barred by res judicata based on earlier judicial decisions related to RGD&IC, Ltd. After Boyd appealed the 2012 Order to the New Mexico Court of Appeals, we affirmed. Boyd Estate ex rel. Boyd v. United States, 2015-NMCA-018, 344 P.3d 1013, cert. denied, 2015-NMCERT-___ (No. 35,026, Jan. 14, 2015).
{3} In 2016, the Elephant Butte Irrigation District and State of New Mexico moved to designate a stream system, "concerning whether surface water rights developed before the Rio Grande Project and now served by the Project were extinguished by any means[,]" in the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication. See Rule 1-071.1(A) NMRA (). Within the adjudication, the issuewas designated as Stream System Issue No. 107 (SS-107) and parties that wished to participate in the stream system issue were ordered to file a Form B notice.
{4} Despite the dismissal of his previous claims to water rights in the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication in 2012, Boyd, individually, and as the personal representative of the Estate of Nathan Boyd, filed a Form B notice in SS-107. In his Form B notice, Boyd asserted that he had a legal right to participate individually and again asserted claims as a successor to Nathan Boyd's interests as a receiver by stating:
In response, the State filed a motion to strike Boyd's Form B notice, reasoning that he had no legal right to participate in SS-107 because both his individual claims and his claims as the personal representative of the Estate of Nathan Boyd had been previously litigated and dismissed. The district court granted the State's motion, finding that Boyd's claimed interests were previously adjudicated in the 2012 Order that was affirmed by this Court in 2015. See Boyd, 2015-NMCA-018.
{5} Boyd's appeal of the grant of the State's motion to strike his Form B notice followed. Because this is a memorandum opinion and the parties are familiar with the facts and procedural history of this case, we reserve discussion of specific facts where necessary to our analysis.
{6} Boyd's arguments do not address any errors in the district court's order from which he appeals—the Form B notice. Instead, he primarily focuses on relitigating issues relating to the 2012 Order and other proceedings long-since completed. In fact, in this appeal, although he takes issue with the district court's actions, Boyd does not seek reversal of the district court's order striking his Form B notice. Instead he requests that we direct the district court to "revise its earlier decisions to consider Boyd's well-pleaded facts including those facts controverting res judicata[.]" Essentially, Boyd asks this Court to overturn critical decisions that have been in place from 1906 until as recently as 2020. See United States v. Rio Grande Dam & Irrigation Co., 1906-NMSC-013, ¶ 3, 13 N.M. 386, 85 P. 393, aff'd sub nom. Rio Grande Dam & Irrigation Co. v. United States, 215 U.S. 266 (1909) (); Boyd v. United States, No. 96-476L, slip op. at 2 (Fed. Cl. Apr. 21, 1997) (); Boyd, 2015-NMCA-018 (); Texas v. New Mexico, ___ U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 815 (2020) (mem.) (denying Boyd's motion to intervene in a dispute about the apportionment of water of the Rio Grande). Boyd additionally claims that the State Engineer lacks authority to regulate a water right prior to the completion of an adjudication. After due consideration of the issues presented, we affirm.
{7} Boyd argues the district court erred by striking his Form B notice because its decision was based on the district court's 2012 Order, an order that Boyd claims suffers from numerous errors. Such errors include that the 2012 Order did not accept his well-pleaded facts, incorrectly equated possession with ownership, erred in its res judicata determination, and erred in not allowing his claims of fraud to go forward. Having thoroughly reviewed the record and Boyd's claims, we conclude that Boyd's claim to SS-107 through the Form B notice is barred by res judicata because his claims were previously determined in the 2012 Order. We explain.
{8} "Res judicata is a judicially created doctrine designed to promote efficiency and finality by giving a litigant only one full and fair opportunity to litigate a claim and by precluding any later claim that could have, and should have, been brought as part of the earlier proceeding." Potter v. Pierce, 2015-NMSC-002, ¶ 1, 342 P.3d 54. "A party asserting res judicata or claim preclusion must establish that (1) there was a final judgment in an earlier action, (2) the earlier judgment was on the merits, (3) the parties in the two suits are the same, and (4) the cause of action is the same in both suits." Id. ¶ 10. "The purpose of res judicata is to relieve parties of the cost and vexation of multiple lawsuits, conserve judicial resources, and, by preventing inconsistent decisions, encourage reliance on adjudication." Chaara v. Lander, 2002-NMCA-053, ¶ 10, 132 N.M. 175, 45 P.3d 895 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "[W]e review the legal issue presented by the district court's application of res judicata de novo." Deflon v. Sawyers, 2006-NMSC-025, ¶ 3, 139 N.M. 637, 137 P.3d 577.
{9} The 2012 Order was based on the district court's review of Boyd's assertion of five distinct claims to water rights in the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication.1 The 2012 Order found that Boyd's asserted rights were based on existing works that he does not own and over which he has not exercised control for over a century. It also addressed his Mendenhall-based cla...
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