August 16, 2021

Ruling and Order issued from Judge Pullan of the Fourth District Court granting defendants VR Acquisitions, LLC’s and the State of Utah’s Motions for Summary Judgment, and summarily dismissed the litigation.

The Ruling and Order notes that “at oral argument the Coalition argued that the public easement to touch the privately owned beds of Utah’s non-navigable rivers and streams arises out of the public’s ownership of state waters.  In the Coalition’s view, this legal ownership has always existed and it is the source from which the Conatser easement springs.  In fact, the Utah Supreme Court has held that the public right to use state waters was “recognized and confirmed” in Article XVII, Section 1 of the Utah Constitution.  (Citing Adams v. Portage Irrigation, Utah 1937.)  The Court responds:  “The Coalition’s recitation of these legal principles is accurate.  But the Coalition has failed to show how public ownership of state waters and the rights of use derived from that ownership constituted an easement under our law as it existed in the late 19th century.  This failure to prove the existence of an easement upends the Coalition’s “public ownership” theory – for, in the absence of an interest in “land,” or “lands of the State” Article XX, Section 1 of the Utah Constitution simply has no application.”  The Court concludes with its Order, stating:  “The Coalition has come forward with substantial evidence that in the last half of the 19th century, Utahans widely and freely touched and used both public and private beds of Utah’s lakes, rivers, and streams fore a variety of purposes, including recreation.  But, the Coalition has failed to prove that this historical use gave rise to a public easement dictated by our law in the late 19th Century.”