Utah Alunite Corp. v. Jones, 2016 UT App 11 (Jan. 22, 2016)

Utah Alunite Corp. and the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration appealed the district court’s dismissal of their petition for judicial review from an order of the State Engineer on a different entity’s application to appropriate water. Utah Alunite and SITLA were not parties to the informal adjudication on the application and had not exhausted their administrative remedies. On appeal, the Court rejected Utah Alunite and SITLA’s argument that under Utah Code § 73-3-14, they need only be “persons aggrieved” to seek judicial review. That section further requires the person to comply with Utah’s Administrative Procedures Act, which limits the availability of judicial review to a “party aggrieved.” Thus, in order to obtain judicial review of an order of the State Engineer, the petitioner must not only be aggrieved by the order, but must also have been a party to the proceeding sought to be reviewed. Because neither Utah Alunite nor SITLA was a party to the proceedings before the State Engineer on the application they sought to have reviewed, the Court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.