Hinchee v. Long Bell Petroleum Co.

103 So. 2d 84, 235 La. 185, 10 Oil & Gas Rep. 507, 1958 La. LEXIS 1191
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMay 26, 1958
Docket43420
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 103 So. 2d 84 (Hinchee v. Long Bell Petroleum Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hinchee v. Long Bell Petroleum Co., 103 So. 2d 84, 235 La. 185, 10 Oil & Gas Rep. 507, 1958 La. LEXIS 1191 (La. 1958).

Opinion

FOURNET, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff, Ben H. Hinchee, the owner and in possession of approximately 673 acres of land in Allen Parish, Louisiana, availing himself of the provisions of R.S. SOBOl, 1 instituted suit to compel the defendant, Long-Bell Petroleum Company, to furnish him a recordable release of claims asserted by that Company to mineral rights in the said land, as well as to have his title to such minerals recognized and adjudged clear and free of the defendant’s claims, and for attorney’s fees in the sum of $5,000 2 Exceptions of no right or cause of action filed by the defendant having been maintained by the district court, the plaintiff has appealed.

The record reveals that the instruments in the chains of title pertinent to this case have provisions identical with those in other *189 deeds which have been twice considered by this Court in connection with lands in another parish, 3 and executed by the same parties, all “constituent corporations” of Long-Bell interests. These separate corporate entities, having the same president and often the same board of directors and minor officials, were organized in the main under the laws of Missouri, with principal offices being maintained at Kansas City— which accounts for the fact that the deeds, while concerned with vast tracts of land in Louisiana as well as the minerals lying thereunder, were confected by notarial act in the State of Missouri, County of Jackson. From the petition’s factual allegations, supported by these instruments, it appears that on December 29, 1931, the then owner of the land here involved, Long-Bell Lumber Sales Corporation, having previously acquired the same from Long-Bell Lumber Company, sold and conveyed “all of the oil, gas and other minerals” in and under extensive areas in four townships, including the land now owned by plaintiff, to the Long-Bell Minerals Corporation, for “Ten Dollars ($10) cash, and other valuable consideration” — the result, under our jurisprudence, being the creation of a mineral servitude. On November 30, 1935, the Lumber Sales Corporation re-transferred the lands here involved to the Lumber Company which, on the same day, conveyed them to Long-Bell Farm Land Corporation. The Minerals Corporation, on February 27, 1936, was merged with and into the Long-Bell Petroleum Company, Inc., and by the provisions of that merger the former ceased to exist and all of its interests and holdings (among these being the rights under the instrument of December 29, 1931, which we construe to be a servitude) became vested in the surviving corporation, the Petroleum Company. On December 28, 1936, the Farm Land Corporation executed an instrument in favor of the Petroleum Company containing recitals that the former “has granted, bargained, sold and conveyed, and by these presents does grant, bargain, sell and convey” to the latter, “but without any warranty * * * of title, even as to the return of the purchase price” (of $500), “all of the oil, gas and other minerals of each kind or character on, in and under, and that may be produced from” certain described tracts, including that with which we are here concerned. Thereafter, on July 31, 1944, the Farm Land Corporation and other Long-Bell constituent corporations were merged into Long-Bell Lumber Corn *191 pany; and on July 9, 1945, the Lumber Company and the Petroleum Company joined as vendors in the execution of a deed conveying the lands to Carl R. Ribbeck, plaintiff’s author in title, but reserving unto the Petroleum Company all of the oil, gas and other minerals. The plaintiff acquired from Ribbeck on February 27, 1950.

Counsel for plaintiff-appellant deny that the issue here is foreclosed by the rulings in the Tritico and Granger cases, 4 and state the theory of plaintiff’s case to be that the 1931 mineral servitude initially acquired by the Long-Bell Minerals Corporation and transferred by merger to the Long-Bell Petroleum Company, Inc., was acknowledged with the intention to interrupt the running of prescription by the landowner Long-Bell Farm Land Corporation in the deed of December 28, 1936 — ^that acknowledgment being shown by the declaration that the Farm Land Corporation had already granted, bargained and sold, “and by these presents does grant, bargain and sell”— so that the 1931 servitude was extended to December 28, 1946, when it terminated for ten years’ non-user. As pointed out by the district judge in his carefully considered Reasons for maintaining the exceptions herein filed, “If he is able to obtain such a declaration, the effect would be that the 1931 mineral servitude was continued in effect, without drilling operations, until December 28, 1946, thereby rendering ineffective the mineral reservation in the deed from the Long-Bell Lumber Company and the Long-Bell Petroleum Company, Inc., to Ribbeck dated July 9, 1945, under the doctrine of the Tritico case,” and leaving plaintiff, through acquisition from Ribbeck in 1950, the owner .of the lands unencumbered by a mineral servitude.

We are not in any wise impressed with cqunsel’s reliance on the proposition that a second sale of minerals for a valuable consideration by the landowner to the then owner of the mineral servitude serves as an indication of the landowner’s intention to interrupt the prescription then accruing .against the existing servitude. In the Tritico case, where similar instruments bearing the same dates were construed, we concluded that the deed of December 28, 1936, in favor of the Long-Bell Petroleum *193 Company, since the property was already burdened with a servitude, “was ineffective.” 216 La. at page 458, 43 So.2d at page 793. Plaintiff’s counsel argue, however, that the Federal court, in the case of Frost Lumber Industries, Inc., v. Republic Production Co., D.C., 29 F.Supp. 957, held that where the landowner joined in a deed with the mineral owner conveying a portion of the minerals to another, such action on the part of the landowner was an acknowledgment of the mineral servitude with intent to interrupt prescription; and that such ruling was affirmed on appeal, Frost Lbr. Co. v. Republic Production Co., 5 Cir., 112 F.2d 462. 5 While the holdings of the Federal courts are persuasive and are entitled to much respect, they will not be followed in the face of positive jurisprudence of this Court to the contrary, and the case relied on was decided almost twenty years ago (i. e., in 1939), before many of this Court’s decisions with reference to the subject.

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Bluebook (online)
103 So. 2d 84, 235 La. 185, 10 Oil & Gas Rep. 507, 1958 La. LEXIS 1191, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hinchee-v-long-bell-petroleum-co-la-1958.