Crawford v. Magnolia Petroleum Co.

62 S.W.2d 264, 1933 Tex. App. LEXIS 951
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 28, 1933
DocketNo. 4021
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 62 S.W.2d 264 (Crawford v. Magnolia Petroleum Co.) 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.

Bluebook
Crawford v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 62 S.W.2d 264, 1933 Tex. App. LEXIS 951 (Tex. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

PI ALL, Chief Justice.

Lewis Grawford, for himself and as next friend for his minor son, filed this suit against the Magnolia Petroleum Company to recover for damages alleged to have resulted to them by reason of the fact that the Petroleum Company permitted smoke and smut from its carbon-black plant to be blown onto premises which they had leased and upon which they raised a crop of cotton in the year 19-30 and another in the year 1931.

The substance of. the amended petition upon which the case was tried is that in the year 1930 they produced in Wheeler county on land adjoining the defendant’s carbon-black plant, nineteen bales of cotton. That while the cotton was maturing and opening in the field, the defendant wrongfully operated in close proximity to said cotton field a carbon-black plant which produced smoke and which the defendant suffered to go into said cotton patch and blacken his cotton, decreasing the market value thereof in the sum of $198.98. That the plant so operated constituted a temporary nuisance maintained by the defendant to ■plaintiffs’ damage.

Practically the same allegation is made with reference to the cStton crop grown upon the same premises in the year 1931.

They further allege that in 1931 they raised and gathered forty-five tons of maize and kaffir -corn from said premises. That the operation of the plant produced smoke which defendant wrongfully caused and suffered to go into the field of feed and blackén and injure and greatly damage it, reducing its market value $1 per ton, to plaintiffs’ damage in the sum of $45. That while it was so 'being operated it constituted a temporary nuisance.

. The defendant answered by general demurrer and general denial and specially alleged that its carbon-black plant was constructed on ten acres of land out of section 39,’ block ’24,’ in Wheeler county, title to which tract it acquired on May 11, 1927. That on said date it purchased the surface rights ’in the’ land on which the plant is located from Mrs. E. A. ’Worley, who owned that and other lands in that vicinity, including the land on which the crops raised by plaintiffs were grown. ■ That at the time defendant purchased the land from Mrs. Worley it was explained :to her that defendant desired the land for the purpose of constructing arid operating a' dár-bon-blaek plant thereoh in order to more' fully develop the mineral resources Of that particular portion of Wheeler county, TéX'., arid particularly the mineral resources of lands belonging to MrS. Worley. That it is a fact well known to Mrs. Worley at that time that a carbon-black plant -cannot be operated Without smoke going therefrom to the lands iri the vicinity. That defendant paid her the sum of $1,000 for said ten acres, of which approximately $75 represented the reasonable valu'e of the land'actually acquired.' The remainder of the consideration was paid Mrs. Worley for such damages to surrounding lands, if any, as might' be caused by-the construction and operation of the carbon-black plant, apd that thereby there was a complete satisfaction of any damages that might thereafter accrue to Mrs. Worley from the lawful operation of said plant. That said plant was at all times operated in a lawful manner. That shortly after it purchased said ten-acre tract in 1927, defendant constructed the plant and such damages as landowners in that vicinity received by reason of such construction. and operation became fixed and that the plaintiffs hold rights in the lands on which said crops were raised solely as tenants of the sriid Mrs. Worley and are bound by any failure on her part to assert claims for damages, and in this connection the defendant says that plaintiffs’ right, if any, to recover is- for this reason barred by the two-year statute of limitation, [266]*266inasmuch as Mrs. Worley, as landlord, is barred by such statute.

Defendant further says that at the time plaintiffs leased said premises subsequent to the construction of said plant, they knew that in the operation thereof dirt and smoke would necessarily 'go across their land, and they knew, or were charged with notice of the fact, that defendant had acquired the property from Mrs. Worley for the purpose of constructing and operating a carbon-black plant thereon and took that fact into consideration in their rental agreement with the said Mrs. Worley, or at least are charged at law with having taken such fact into consideration, and that plaintiffs cannot now claim or assert any rights against defendant which could not be asserted by the said'Mrs. Worley.

The court instructed the jury to return a verdict in favor of the defendant, and judgment was rendered accordingly.

The first two propositions urged by the appellants are submitted together; the first being that where the plaintiffs were tenants in 1930 and 1931, occupying the land adjoining defendant’s plant, and their crops were damaged during said years by smoke from the plant, which lessened the market value of said crops and suit was filed for the damages within two years, it was error for the trial court to instruct a verdict in favor of the defendant, even though the site for the plant had been purchased by the defendant from the plaintiffs’ lessor in 1927 and the plant constructed soon thereafter. By the second proposition the appellants insist that where the defendant permitted smoke to escape from its plant and go on plaintiffs’ land, injuring the crops thereon in the sum of $392.-19 in 1930 and $122.64 in 1931, and it was undisputed that more than half the smoke which lodged on the growing crops and caused the damage came from the defendant’s plant, the trial court should have instructed the jury to render judgment in favor of the plaintiffs against the defendant for the sum of $257.41.

Neither of these propositions directly challenges the action of the court in directing a verdict against plaintiffs, but under R. S. art. 1757 (as amended by Acts 1931, c. 45, § 1 {Vernon’s Ann. Oiv. St. art. 1757]), we are authorized to consider the assignments of error in which the court’s action in giving a peremptory instruction is criticized.

The material facts which do not seem to be controverted, and upon which the case may be decided, are, in substance, that Mrs. Wor-ley, joined by several of her neighbors, on Eebruary 20, 1926, in consideration of $6,400 paid to them, executed to the Magnolia Petroleum Company an oil and gas lease conveying 320 acres out of section 39, block 24, in Wheeler county. The lease recites that Mrs. Worley owned the N. E. ¼ of said section and states the ownership by other grantors of certain interests in the remainder of the land. By the terms of the lease the defendant was authorized to explore and operate the whole 320 acres as an undivided tract and “to conduct all operations and erect and use thereon all such buildings, derricks, tanks, structures, machinery and equipment as might toe necessary for the purposes of the grant.” Provision was made for the payment of royalties from minerals which might be produced, and it was further stipulated: “The use of the surface of the land is hereby granted only so far as it may be necessary to conduct said drilling or mining operations hereunder, including the searching for, producing, saving, storing and transportation of said minerals.” Gas was discovered by the defendant, and thereafter, on May 11, 1927, Mrs. Worley executed a deed conveying to the defendant the surface right of ten acres of land out of the S. E. portion of said section.

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Bluebook (online)
62 S.W.2d 264, 1933 Tex. App. LEXIS 951, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crawford-v-magnolia-petroleum-co-texapp-1933.