Badger v. Brooklyn Canal Co

In Badger v. Brooklyn Canal Co., 922 P.2d 745 (Utah 1998), the Court concluded that the grant of a protest right in Utah Code section 73-3-7(1) does not carry with it an automatic right to appeal the state engineer's decision in court. The Court stated that section 73-3-7(1) does not create in any "interested" person a vested right to protest and subsequent entitlement to appeal. Rather, it simply allows those persons who have a genuine concern about proposed changes in water rights to voice those concerns before the State Engineer and, as an important corollary, provides the State Engineer with all viewpoints relevant to any proposal. (922 P.2d at 750 n.9.)