Donley v. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company

328 S.W.2d 192, 12 Oil & Gas Rep. 278, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2108
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 12, 1959
Docket3445
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 328 S.W.2d 192 (Donley v. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company) 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
Donley v. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, 328 S.W.2d 192, 12 Oil & Gas Rep. 278, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2108 (Tex. Ct. App. 1959).

Opinions

GRISSOM, Chief Justice.

Prior to June 6, 1951, C. C. Allmand and wife owned the royalty in controversy. On that day they executed an oil lease to Sohio Petroleum Company reserving a j4th royalty. On the same day they conveyed to [193]*193E. H. R. Sabens, individually, an undivided 54th of said reserved 54th royalty for fifteen years. Sabens and W. Edward Lee each paid for and owned a one-half of said one-fourth of a one-eighth term royalty, which shall, for convenience, hereafter be referred to as a J4th royalty. Thereafter Sabens conveyed to Lee and his nominees Lee’s Yz interest. The last such conveyance was on August 2, 1951, when Sa-bens conveyed to W. Edward Lee and his daughter 3/128ths of said royalty, being the remaining interest owned by Lee. Sa-bens then still owned ll/128ths of said royalty. He owed Lee part of the purchase price for Lee’s interest which had been sold by Sabens to Greenberg and Parris and, on September 7, 1951, Sabens, trustee, conveyed his remaining ll/128ths to Lee to secure its payment. Sabens paid Lee and, at Sabens’ request, Lee conveyed Sabens’ ll/128ths royalty to Murph Wilson, Sabens’ attorney, by deed dated October 8, 1951. On October 16, 1951, Murph Wilson conveyed to O. D. Harrison l/32nds of said royalty and on October 20, 1951, he conveyed l/32nds thereof to Oscar Donley. On November 9, 1951, Sabens, trustee, conveyed l/160ths of said royalty to Cecil Warren and on January 28, 1952, Sabens, trustee, conveyed another l/160ths to Warren.

An abstract of a judgment against E, H. R. Sabens, individually, now owned by Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, was filed for record in Taylor County on May 19, 1951. An abstract of a judgment against Sabens, individually, now owned by Claude S. Holly, was filed for record in Taylor County on July 13, 1951. Said judgments were duly abstracted, indexed and recorded and constituted liens against any real estate owned by E. H. R. Sabens in Taylor County. Some of the facts just stated were disputed but were so found by the trial court and are approved. The trial court further found that in his contracts with the Allmands and Lee, Sabens acted as an individual and that one-half of the royalty conveyed by the Allmands in June, 1951, belonged to Sabens individually and that when the royalty deed was delivered to Sabens it was delivered to him as an individual. When the deed was recorded it showed the grantee to be “E. H. R. Sabens, Trustee”. The conveyances to appellants, or their grantors, were by “Sabens, Trustee”. The evidence justifies the court’s evident conclusion that the word trustee after the name of the grantee Sabens in said royalty deed was inserted by Sabens after the deed was delivered to him. We approve said finding. The trial court held that Youngstown’s and Kelly’s judgments were secured by liens on Sabens’ interest in the royalty in place. This is correct. But, the court further held that the liens followed the oil when produced and covered the money paid into the registry of the court by the lessee, Sohio, which was an amount equal to the value of the oil produced attributable to appellants’ interest in the royalty. Said money was paid to said judgment creditors in the discharge of their debts, liens and fees. Judgment was rendered in favor of Youngstown and Kelly against Mrs. Frances Donley, individually and as independent executrix of Oscar Don-ley’s estate, C. D. Harrison and Cecil Warren whereby their judgment liens were established and foreclosed against said funds paid into court by Sohio. Mrs. Donley, individually and as executrix, Harrison and Warren have appealed. Appellants question the holding that said abstracts of judgments created liens against the Donley, Warren and Harrison royalty purchased from the trustee and his vendors and extended to and covered the money paid into court by Sohio. The court held that said abstracts of judgments against Sabens, individually, created liens against Sabens’ interest in the royalty standing in Sabens’ name as trustee and covered the proceeds of the sale of oil attributable to the royalty interests of appellants and, in effect, that the record of said deed to Sabens, trustee, constituted constructive notice to appellants of Sabens’ ownership as an individual. Appellants’ points are in substance that the [194]*194court erred in holding that said abstracts of judgments against Sabens as an individual created liens against the royalty acquired by appellants from Sabens, trustee, and his vendors because there was no evidence that appellants had actual notice of Sabens’ individual ownership and that the court erred in holding that the filing of the abstracts against Sabens created liens on the interest acquired by appellants from Sabens, trustee, because Sabens’ title, if any, was equitable, of which appellants had no knowledge, and such abstracts could not create liens on an equitable interest owned by the judgment debtors in lands the legal title to which was held by a separate juristic person, namely, Sabens, trustee. Their fourth and fifth points are to the effect that if said abstracts of judgments constituted liens on appellants’ royalty it did not attach to the funds paid into court by Sohio and the court erred in holding that said judgment creditors were entitled to said funds and, also, that' appellees did not establish a conversion of the corpus upon which they claim liens, nor that their security had been impaired and, therefore, the court erred in ordering the money deposited in court paid to appellees instead of appellants.

The evidence sustains the finding that one-half of said one-fourth royalty was owned by Sabens and one-half was held by him in trust for Lee. There is no contention here that Lee’s interest is subject to said liens. The court correctly found that the filing of the abstracts fixed liens against the royalty interest actually owned by Sabens individually.. The following authorities sustain that holding. In Texas, where royalty is real estate, the filing of an abstract of judgment fixes a lien against royalty. 49 C.J.S. Judgments § 482, p. 922. A judgment lien attaches to such realty but not to rents, issues and profits therefrom. 49 C.J.S. Judgments § 472, pp. 906, 907; Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. Article 5449. The fact that Sabens’ individual interest in royalty was not of record did not defeat the judgment liens against whatever interest he actually owned, except as against innocent purchasers. 26 Tex.Jur. 380; Traders’ Nat. Bank v. Price, Tex.Com.App., 228 S.W. 160; First State Bank of Amarillo v. Jones, 107 Tex. 623, 183 S.W. 874; Blankenship v. Douglas, 26 Tex. 225, 229; Payne v. Bracken, 131 Tex. 394, 115 S.W.2d 903, 905; Calvert v. Roche, 59 Tex. 463; Tex.Dig., Judgment ‘^’775-780; Parks v. West, Tex.Civ.App., 274 S.W. 164, 165; Steele v. Harris, Tex.Civ.App., 2 S.W.2d 537. In Brown v. Hodgman, 124 W.Va. 136, 19 S.E.2d 910, it was expressly held by the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia that where a judgment debtor held record title as a trustee, a judgment against him as an individual attached to whatever interest he actually owned in realty.

Unless appellants had notice, actual or constructive, of Sabens’ individual interest, they took the royalty purchased by them from the trustee free of said liens.

In Parker v. Coop, 60 Tex. 111, the court said:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Prior v. Farm Bureau Oil Co. (In Re Prior)
176 B.R. 485 (S.D. Illinois, 1995)
Palandjoglou v. United National Insurance
821 F. Supp. 1179 (S.D. Texas, 1993)
United States v. Bollinger Mobile Home Sales, Inc.
492 F. Supp. 496 (N.D. Texas, 1980)
Montague v. Brassell
443 S.W.2d 703 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1969)
United States v. Texas Eastern Transmission Corp.
254 F. Supp. 114 (W.D. Louisiana, 1965)
Onyx Refining Co. v. Evans Production Corp.
182 F. Supp. 253 (N.D. Texas, 1959)
Donley v. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company
328 S.W.2d 192 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1959)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
328 S.W.2d 192, 12 Oil & Gas Rep. 278, 1959 Tex. App. LEXIS 2108, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/donley-v-youngstown-sheet-and-tube-company-texapp-1959.