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Show SPECIAL STATUTORY ADJUDICATION PROCEDURES 465 However, in a 1944 case .the Utah Supreme Court said: [T]his case is clearly one which should be maintained only as a statutory proceeding [under the Utah water adjudication statute] because the scope and character of this water suit made it a suit for adjudication of a comprehensive river system. * * * * Controversies may arise in which the District Court could exercise its discretion and determine whether to proceed as a private suit or under a statutory adjudication, but the scope and character of this water suit is such that the District Court abused its discretion in not granting the petition of various of the defendants who sought to have this case proceed as a statutory adjudication.127 The Utah statute provides that, "Whenever any civil action is commenced in the district court involving fewer than ten water claimants or less than the major part of the rights to the use of water from any river system, lake, underground water basin, or other source, the court in its discretion may, if a general determination of the rights to the use of water from said water source This quoted statement was quoted in a later action to declare and quiet title to a plaintiffs water rights against a defendant and for injunctive relief, in which the defendant contended that only the Board of Control, not the courts, is vested with the power to determine priority of water rights. In that regard, the court said that "the language here used is so clear and explicit, and is so complete an answer to the contention of counsel for the defendant, that we do not know how to add to the force of it. The contention, accordingly, must be overruled." Simmons v. Ramsbottom, 51 Wyo. 419, 68 Pac. (2d) 153, 159 (1937). The court also said inter alia that "The Legislature in some instances made but limited appropriations, so that a number of years elapsed before the Board of Control was able to make even a small percentage of adjudications necessary or advisable to be made. In view of these facts, many appropriators might often have been substantially remediless, if the contention now made by counsel for the defendant is correct, for if courts have no jurisdiction to determine disputes as to water rights now, they had none in the years immediately following the adoption of the Constitution. Counsel contend that the statutes of this state, rightly construed, provide for exclusive jurisdiction to make such adjudications. Conceding for the moment the power of the Legislature to give such exclusive jurisdiction to the board-which would be inconsistent with the holding in Farm Investment Company v. Carpenter, 9 Wyo. 110, 61 P. 258, 269 [supra], * * * we know of no provision to that effect." 68 Pac. (2d) at 156-157. See also Louth v. Kaser, 364 Pac. (2d) 96, 99 (Wyo. 1961). With respect to the Washington statutory procedure not being exclusive, at least as to existing rights, see State ex rel. Roseburg v. Mohar, 169 Wash. 368, 13 Pac. (2d) 454, 455-456 (1932), discussed in the State summary for Washington in the appendix. 121Salt Lake City v. Anderson, 106 Utah 306, 148 Pac. (2d) 346, 349-350 (1944). The case involved an action by a number of plaintiffs against approximately 2430 defendants. 148 Pac. (2d) at 347. In this case, the court refuted the plaintiffs' assertion that proceeding as a statutory general adjudication would deprive them of the right to equitable injunctive relief. 148 Pac. (2d) at 350. In this regard, see the discussion at notes 119-121 supra. |