tort liability. On the other hand, there are a number of principles that would lead to the opposite conclusion. First, our courts have held that a statute is to be interpreted as the legislature understood it at the time of enactment. State v. Morrison, 1999 NMCA th. 207, 477 A.2d 36, 39 (1984) (applying state statute to public lands), overruled by Pennsylvania Dep’t of Envtl. Res. v. Auresto, 511 Pa. 73, 511 A.2d 815, 816-17 (1986). Our courts cited this proposition the very year the legislature passed the RUS, providing some evidence that the legislature would not have understood the word “owner” to include government entities, even if they were subject to tort liability at the time. See State ex rel. State Highway Comm’n v. City of Aztec, 77 N.M. 524, 526, 424 P.2d 801, 803 (1967) (<HOLDING>); see also S. Union Gas Co. v. N.M. Pub. Serv.
holding that constitutional provision requiring municipalities to pass an ordinance in order to incur debt applied to debt to the state as well as private entities but acknowledging the canon of construction that a sovereign is presumptively not intended to be bound by its own statute unless included by the clearest implication holding same as to an easement by implication holding that effect of discharge of debt under bankruptcy code is the same as it was under the 1898 bankruptcy act it is not an extinguishment of the debt but only a bar to enforcement of the debt as a personal obligation of the debt or holding that effect of bankruptcy discharge under arizona law is not an extinguishment of the debt but only a bar to enforcement of the debt as a personal obligation of the debtor holding that a debt collectors filing of a lawsuit on a debt that appears to be timebarred  is an unfair and unconscionable means of collecting the debt