Amarillo Oil Co. v. Energy-Agri Products, Inc.

731 S.W.2d 113
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 13, 1987
Docket07-83-0058-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 731 S.W.2d 113 (Amarillo Oil Co. v. Energy-Agri Products, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Amarillo Oil Co. v. Energy-Agri Products, Inc., 731 S.W.2d 113 (Tex. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff below appeals from a take-nothing judgment, based upon a jury verdict, in its suit to quiet title to the natural gas in the Brown Dolomite formation underlying a lease it owned in Carson County, from which it and its predecessor had been producing gas for more than thirty years. We will dismiss the case for the reasons now to be stated.

Overview of the Litigation

In 1952, Myrla Hodges executed an oil and gas lease to H.B. Howze; defendant acquired the right to produce the oil and casinghead gasoline from the tract by a “farmout” from Kimberlin, associated with Howze in the original lease. Empire Southern Producing Company, having acquired the right to produce natural gas under the Hodges tract, drilled a single well thereon and produced natural gas until the well and the rights to the gas were acquired by Amarillo Oil in 1958. This well, the Hodges No. 1, had produced gas for more than thirty years from the Brown Dolomite formation; and, according to our record, had produced approximately 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas, but had never produced any oil. Defendant, Energy-Agri Products, Inc., drilled two wells near the Hodges No. 1, through the Brown Dolomite formation and perforated one of the wells at 10-foot intervals therein so as to produce gas from the same formation as produced plaintiff’s gas. The second well had not been perforated at the time of trial, but it was undisputed that defendant intended to perforate it if not prevented by court order.

Gas from the Kimberlin well was passed through a chilling device which reduced the temperature to approximately minus 25 degrees below zero. Through this mechanism, the gas was converted into a liquid which was, as described by the witnesses, a white, watery liquid which had many of the chemical characteristics of crude petroleum. According to one witness, it smelled like rubbing alcohol, and when poured upon the ground, evaporated very rapidly and dissipated into the atmosphere. For a discussion of the phenomena see Clymore Production Co. v. Thompson, 13 F.Supp. 469, 471 (W.D. Tex.1936), and the Note by Ralph A. Midkiff, entitled Phase Severance of Gas Bights from Oil Rights, in 63 Texas Law Review 133 (1984), where the subject is treated in detail.

The trial court granted a temporary injunction to plaintiff but, in an unpublished opinion, we reversed the judgment and dissolved the injunction for want of a complete record. During the time the restraining order was in effect, plaintiff procured a court order permitting a test of the two Kimberlin wells to determine if they should be classified as oil or gas wells. Upon the basis of these tests, conducted in accordance with Railroad Commission Rules, and in the presence of its representatives, the Commission duly classified these two Kim-berlin wells as “oil wells,” as defined in its rules and regulations. See Texas Natural Resources Code Annotated, section 86.-002(5) and (6) (Vernon 1978), for the statutory definitions of “gas well” and “oil well.”

At the conclusion of the evidence, the trial court overruled motions by both parties for a peremptory instruction and sub[116]*116mitted the case to the jury upon six special issues, which we summarize:

No. 1: The producing horizon of the Kim-berlin No. 2 in the Brown Dolomite formation is not a horizon productive of natural gas only.

No. 2: If Kimberlin No. 3 were perforated as was done with Kimberlin No. 2, it can produce crude petroleum oil from the Brown Dolomite formation.

No. 3: If the Kimberlin No. 3 well were to be perforated as was done with Kimber-lin No. 2, it would produce 6 barrels of crude petroleum per day.

No. 4: The jury found that the Brown Dolomite formation, as found in Kimberlin No. 2, is not a horizon productive of natural gas only.1

No. 5: The jury found that the Kimberlin No. 2 well could produce crude petroleum oil from the Brown Dolomite formation.2

No. 6: The jury found that the average daily production of crude petroleum oil from the Brown Dolomite formation from Kimberlin No. 2 was 6 barrels.

The trial court overruled plaintiffs Rule 301, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, motions seeking a judgment in its favor notwithstanding the verdict and disregarding the unfavorable jury findings, and judgment was rendered for defendant.

Merits of the Appeal

The appeal, basically, is predicated upon evidentiary points of error. There are “no evidence,” “insufficient evidence,” and “great weight and preponderance of the evidence” points leveled against the several findings.

Pursuant to the rule adopted by our Supreme Court in Glover v. Texas Gen. Indent. Co., 619 S.W.2d 400, 401 (Tex.1981), we will first dispose of the “no evidence” points. In passing upon the legal and factual insufficiency points, we will follow the familiar path laid down in Garza v. Alviar, 395 S.W.2d 821, 823 (Tex.1965), and its progeny. From our review of the record, there was “some” evidence supporting the jury findings; consequently, the “no evidence” points are overruled.

It will be noted from our account, that plaintiff failed to secure jury findings supporting its contentions. In our review of the attack upon these “non-findings,” we will follow our recent decision in Texas Employers Ins. Ass’n v. Choate, 644 S.W.2d 112, 113 n. * (Tex.App.—Amarillo 1982, no writ). Having considered all of the evidence in the record on the questions submitted, as required by the authorities, we do not find merit to the contentions now advanced and all such points are overruled. Thus, we dispose of the first seven points of error.

Plaintiffs eighth point is its contention that the trial court erred in failing to grant its amended motion for new trial on the point that defendant’s attorney violated the court’s order granting plaintiff’s motion in limine. In this regard, plaintiff submits that defendant’s attorney and witnesses set out on a course which conflicted with the court’s sustention of the motion in limine. On the record, we cannot fault the trial court.

Initially, it is to be observed that the purpose of a motion in limine is to prevent the introduction of prejudicial matter before the jury, but a motion in limine is not the predicate for complaint on appeal; the predicate is a proper, timely objection when the matter to be excluded is offered. Bridges v. City of Richardson, 163 Tex. 292, 354 S.W.2d 366, 367-68 (1962). Thus, to preserve error to matter injected in contravention of a sustained motion in limine, a timely objection is necessary. Pool v. Ford Motor Co., 715 S.W.2d 629, 637 (Tex.1986).

[117]*117In the development of its point, plaintiff lists five items of testimony and a portion of defendant’s attorney’s argument which are alleged to violate the court’s motion-in-limine rulings, and which, so plaintiff argues, was error that could not have been cured by objection or instruction.

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