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Riedel v. Anderson6/4/2003
akota Supreme Court interpreted as creating an express trust in Kanaly v. State, 368 N.W.2d 819, 823 (S.D. 1985). The Oklahoma Constitution recites that that state accepts all grants of land "as a sacred trust." Okla. Const., Art. XI, § 1; see also §§ 2, 5. The Utah Constitution states that the lands "shall be held in trust for the people,... for the respective purposes for which they have been or may be granted, donated, devised or otherwise acquired. Utah Const., Art. XX, § 1.
Although Wyoming's Constitution contains a declaration of trust as to the proceeds from the sale of the lands, Wyo. Const. Art. 7, §§ 2, 6, there is no similar declaration as to the land itself as in the states listed above. The delegates would have had available to them the specific trust language of constitutions such as Colorado's, Oklahoma's, Idaho's and Washington's. It is also significant to note in this regard that the Wyoming Constitution, drafted in September 1889 and adopted by vote of the territorial citizenry in November 1889, was available for review by Congress when it passed the Wyoming Act of Admission in July of 1890. Just as it was significant to the Branson court that Colorado, immediately after passage of the Colorado Enabling Act, declared in its constitution that the lands were held in trust, so it is significant that Congress passed the Wyoming Enabling Act knowing that the new Wyoming Constitution limited the declaration of trust to proceeds from the sale of the lands.
The State in its brief cites National Parks & Cons. Ass'n v. Bd. of State Lands, 869 P.2d 909 (Utah 1993), for the proposition that it is irrational to distinguish between the lands and the proceeds of those lands as the corpus of a constitutionally declared trust. However, although such a distinction is not an uncommon one in state constitutions, Utah is the only state to so rule and, in fact, the only state to address the issue. According to one commentator, "the issue of whether the school lands are a part of the same trust that applies to the permanent fund remains an open question that a state legislature could answer." Sean E. O'Day, School Trust Lands: The Land Manager's Dilemma Between Educational Funding and Environmental Conservation, A Hobson's Choice?, 8 N.Y.U. Envtl. L. J. 163, 210 (1999); see also, Fairfax, supra, at 826.
A summary of the Wyoming Constitution's provisions regarding the state school lands shows that the lands are accepted for educational purposes; that the board of land commissioners is established with authority to manage, sell or lease the lands as directed by the legislature; that the proceeds from the sale and lease of the lands shall constitute a permanent trust fund, with only the income used for educational purposes; that the lands may be leased on whatever terms the legislature shall prescribe; and that the lands may be sold only at public auction for at least three-quarters of their appraised value. We conclude that the express latitude given the legislature, combined with the limitation of the express trust language to the proceeds from the lands, militate against a constitutionally-created trust in the school lands by the terms of the Wyoming Constitution.
Although neither the Wyoming Act of Admission nor the Wyoming Constitution encumber the school land grants with a trust, the legislature's wide management authority over those lands includes the authority to statutorily declare a trust. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 36-5101, et seq. (LexisNexis 2001) (regulating leases of school land grants). In 1996 the legislature commissioned a study of the school lands, s ee, "Final Report and Recommendations of the Select Committee on State Trust Lands," (Wyo. Leg. Serv. Office,
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