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Show SPECIAL STATUTORY ADJUDICATION PROCEDURES 489 public inspection all proofs or evidence of appropriation of water and the findings of the Board in relation thereto. Any person may then contest the claims in the manner provided for in an original adjudication proceeding, provided that contests may not be maintained between appropriators who were parties to the same adjudication proceedings in the original hearings.275 Upon the completion of testimony taken under this provision, the Division Superintendent forwards all testimony and evidence to the Board which then proceeds in accordance with the statutory provisions applicable to contests in original adjudication proceedings.276 Constitutionality of adjudication statute. -Validity of the adjudication statute was assailed in the Wyoming Supreme Court and was sustained there.277 In answer to a contention that the act was unconstitutional on the ground that the term "supervise" in the act's title did not include adjudication of water rights, the supreme court held that the general subject of the statute was supervision of the waters of the State, of which determination of priorities was a part and, therefore, germane to the general subject. The court was not impressed with the objection that the act confers judicial power on the Board of Control. There was created a purely statutory proceeding which did not depend on the complaint of an injured party, and did not result in a judgment for damages nor issuance of any customary judicial process. The supreme court thought well of the policy of entrusting to an administrative board, with experience and peculiar knowledge along this particular line, the answering of technical and practical questions that continually arise in development of irrigation under the principle of prior appropriation. Hence:278 The determination required to be made by the board is, in our opinion, primarily administrative rather than judicial in character. The proceeding is one in which a claimant does not obtain redress for an injury but secures evidence of title to a valuable right-a right to use a peculiar public commodity. That evidence of title comes properly from an administrative board, which, for the state in its administrative capacity, represents the public, and is charged with the duty of conserving public as well as private interests. The board, it is true, acts judicially, but the power exercised is quasi-judicial only, and such as under proper circumstances may appropriately be conferred upon executive officers or boards. That there is no express provision in the State constitution for adjudication of water rights by an administrative board was recognized by the Wyoming Supreme Court in a much later case. However, the view was expressed that having been given such jurisdiction by the legislature, the basic right to il$Id. § 41-175. 276/rf. § 41-179. 277Farm Inv. Co. v. Carpenter, 9 Wyo. 110, 132-135, 61 Pac. 258 (1900). See Hamp v. State, 19 Wyo. 377, 388-393,118 Pac. 653 (1911). 2789Wyo.at 143. |