Callahan v. Stewart

231 F. Supp. 115, 20 Oil & Gas Rep. 1009, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7589
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Oklahoma
DecidedJune 29, 1964
DocketCiv. No. 5120
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 231 F. Supp. 115 (Callahan v. Stewart) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Callahan v. Stewart, 231 F. Supp. 115, 20 Oil & Gas Rep. 1009, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7589 (E.D. Okla. 1964).

Opinion

DAUGHERTY, District Judge.

This is a quiet title suit involving primarily the equitable doctrine of estop-pel by deed.

Della M. Roland was the owner of a 140-acre tract of land in McClain County, [117]*117Oklahoma. Joined by her husband, Fletcher M. Roland, she conveyed an undivided one-half mineral interest in said land in 1929 to the Cal-Cul Oil Company, an Oklahoma corporation. This conveyance contained covenants of warranty of title. In 1931 she and her husband conveyed an undivided two-sevenths mineral interest in said land to the Rogers Oil and Gas Company. This conveyance also contained covenants of warranty of title. At the time of both of the above mineral conveyances the land was mortgaged to the Kansas City Life Insurance Company, both Della M. and Fletcher M. Roland signing the note and mortgage involved.

Cal-Cul was adjudged a bankrupt in 1933 and a Trustee was elected in the bankruptcy proceeding in the same year.

In 1936, a Sheriff’s deed was executed to the Kansas City Life Insurance Company covering the 140-acre tract as a result of a mortgage foreclosure proceeding brought by it on the aforementioned note and mortgage. Cal-Cul, Rogers Oil and Gas Company and its Grantees, Orr and Woodford, who had acquired a part of the Rogers interest, and the Trustee in bankruptcy of Cal-Cul along with the Rolands, were all parties defendant in this mortgage foreclosure suit.

In 1937, the said Trustee in Bankruptcy sold and conveyed by Trustee’s deeds all of the assets of the bankrupt Cal-Cul Oil Company to parties we will call herein the Viei'sen group, all of whom are defendants herein. This was accomplished by several documents, one in the general language above mentioned, and others specifying properties by legal description, in one of which latter conveyances was included the above described one-half mineral interest of Cal-Cul in the property here involved notwithstanding this interest had been foreclosed in the Kansas City Life Insurance Company mortgage foreclosure proceeding during the previous year.

In 1939, the Kansas City Life Insurance Company by warranty deed conveyed the surface and minerals in the 140-acre tract to B. C. Williams.

In 1943, as the result of a demand from the said B. C. Williams, the Viersen group executed to him a quitclaim deed covering the said Cal-Cul undivided one-half mineral interest in the subject property. B. C. Williams made this demand to remove a cloud on his title created by the said Trustee’s conveyance in which one-half of the minerals under said 140-acre tract was specifically described and conveyed to the Viersen group after the Sheriff’s deed had issued in the mortgage foreclosure suit to Williams’ predecessor in title and this purpose for the quitclaim deed was recited in the instrument.

Thereafter, in 1947 and 1949, F. M. Roland, the same person as Fletcher M. Roland above mentioned, acquired title to a total of 22.34 acres of minerals in the said 140-acre tract. Following this acquisition F. M. Roland conveyed portions of this 22.34 acre mineral interest to certain of the defendants herein. He then died in 1951, still owning a portion thereof, and his heirs are also defendants herein as to said remaining portion.

Cal-Cul lost its corporate powers by a suspension and forfeiture order of the Secretary of State of Oklahoma in 1937 for failure to pay the fee required of it by Oklahoma law. At the time of such forfeiture the plaintiff, John J. Callahan, was one of its stockholders and directors and was the last managing officer of Cal-Cul Oil Company. He brings this suit pursuant to law (68 Oklahoma Statutes Annotated § 623), as Trustee for such defunct and cancelled corporation for the benefit of its creditors and stockholders. The total Rogers Oil and Gas Company interest is now owned by the defendants, Charles L. Orr and A. M. Woodford, who took their respective interests in 1931 and W. G. Rogers, who took his interest in 1945, all hereinafter called the Orr group. They obtained their respective interests from Rogers Oil and Gas Company by warranty deed.

The plaintiff as such Trustee for Cal-Cul claims that Cal-Cul is entitled to have its title quieted in the entire 22.34 acre mineral interest on the [118]*118grounds that F. M. Roland, with his wife, warranted title to it in the above mentioned conveyance in 1929, and later reacquired title to the said 22.34 acre mineral interest which inured to its bene-' fit under the equitable doctrine of estop-pel by deed or after acquired title. The plaintiff further asserts that the Trustee’s conveyances to the Viersen group did not transfer this contingent equitable right (the equitable right of estoppel by deed) inasmuch as said conveyances contained no covenants of warranty; that the Viersen group not having acquired this said right, could not and did not convey it by their subsequent quitclaim deed to B. C. Williams. Further, that plaintiff is entitled to the entire 22.34 acre mineral interest as against the Orr group, successors in title to the said mineral conveyance to the Rogers Oil and Gas Company, since the conveyance to Cal-Cul was prior and the 22.34 acre mineral interest is less than the 70 acre mineral interest (the undivided one-half mineral interest in 140 acres) it purchased in 1929.

The Viersen group claims that the said contingent equitable right (the equitable right of estoppel by deed) did pass by and with the said Trustee’s conveyances to them by reason of the Rolands’ covenant of warranty of title being a covenant running with the land and the said equitable right being incident thereto is transferable by any kind of conveyance or succession. The Viersen group then contends, however, that this does not apply to their quitclaim deed conveyance thereafter made to B. C. Williams, since under the facts and circumstances of said conveyance it amounted to only a disclaimer of interest which did not defeat their right and ability to claim the possession and ownership and benefits of said equitable right of estop-pel by deed when F. M. Roland acquired said 22.34 acre mineral interest.

The Orr group contends that the Cal-Cul Trustees’ contingent equitable right to assert the doctrine of estoppel by deed is a part and parcel of a covenant running with the land and was transferred to the Viersen group by the Trustee’s conveyances and was likewise transferred by the Viersen group to B. C. Williams who then owned the fee simple title, thus placing everything including this said right in B. C. Williams, with the resulting effect of then extinguishing the same. Further, that by this extinguishment of the said contingent equitable right originally belonging to the Trustee of Cal-Cul they (the Orr group) assumed first priority to the after-acquired 22.34 acre mineral interest purchased by the said F. M. Roland and that their said forty acre mineral interest (an undivided two-sevenths of 140 acres) obtained in 1931 from F. M. Roland and wife, entitles them to have title quieted in them in and to the entire said 22.34 acre mineral interest.

The plaintiff, the Viersen group, and the Orr group, all assert that the defendant grantees of F. M. Roland after he acquired the said 22.34 acre mineral interest and the heirs of F. M. Roland upon his death have no right or title to any of said 22.34 acre mineral interest because the same passed to them by operation of law immediately upon F. M. Roland’s acquiring the same, and that title therefore should be quieted against said grantees and heirs of F. M. Roland, and all of them.

The said defendant grantees and heirs of F. M.

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Bluebook (online)
231 F. Supp. 115, 20 Oil & Gas Rep. 1009, 1964 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7589, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/callahan-v-stewart-oked-1964.