Kuklies v. Reinert

256 S.W.2d 435, 2 Oil & Gas Rep. 794, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2257
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 26, 1953
Docket3064
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 256 S.W.2d 435 (Kuklies v. Reinert) 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
Kuklies v. Reinert, 256 S.W.2d 435, 2 Oil & Gas Rep. 794, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2257 (Tex. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinions

TIREY, Justice.

The Lone Star Gas Company brought its bill of interpleader against Otto Reinert and wife and other necessary parties for the purpose of determining the ownership of the proceeds accruing from gas produced from a well drilled on the farm belonging to Otto Reinert and his wife, and it deposited the proceeds into the registry of the court and asked the court to determine the rights of the parties.

Pertinent to this discussion the bill of interpleader alleged there were certain liens existing against the property and that there was of record a certain unitization agreement between the parties affecting the land that made it necessary that the court determine the ownership of the proceeds received from the gas.

Each of the parties named in the bill of interpleader filed appropriate answers setting up their respective rights.

Otto Reinert and his wife in their answer and cross-action denied plaintiffs’ right [437]*437to bill of interpleader, and sought to have the same declared void. They sought by cross-action in trespass to try title to recover title and possession of their premises and for damages against all of the parties and prayed for appropriate relief.

Defendant Texas Consolidated Oils answered to the effect that it was the owner by assignment of an oil, gas and mineral lease executed by Otto 'Reinert and wife under date of June IS, 1944, recorded in Vol. 131, page 591, Deed Records of Hamilton County, Texas, covering the Otto Reinert tract, and described it by metes and bounds, and set up its interest under and by virtue of the lease and the assignment and prayed for appropriate relief. Texas Consolidated Oils further pleaded in the alternative “that the said Otto Reinert and wife Dora Reinert, lessors in the above described lease, joined with Julius Reinert and wife Minnie Reinert, and Walter Kuk-lies and wife Eline Kuklies, lessors in two other certain leases more particularly here-inabove described, and Rudolph Grossen-bacher, lessee in the first two of said leases, and L. E. Sumner, lessee in the other, in the execution of an agreement dated February 8, 1944, entitled Gas Unitization and Operating Agreement, which provides that all of the lands described in said leases shall for the production of gas only be developed and operated as a unit designated therein as the ‘Consolidated Area’. Said agreement is filed for record in Vol. 132, page 550 of the Deed Records of Hamilton County, Texas. The lands and leases covered and included in said agreement are more particularly set out and described in Vol. 127, page 144 and Vol. 130, page 508 of the Deed Records of Hamilton County, Texas,” and further alleged that such unitization agreement provides in part:

“1. Lessors hereby agree that for the purpose of drilling development and production of gas, said consolidated area, however the same may now or hereafter be divided in ownership, shall be and remain a single unit, and shall be developed and operated as such and all royalties accruing from gas produced from any well or, wells located anywhere on said consolidated area, shall, be divided among and paid to the several lessors, their heirs, successors, and assigns, in the proportion which the acreage owned by them respectively in the consolidated area, as hereinbe-fore set forth,, bears to the total acreage contained in said consolidated area.
“2. The completion of a well producing gas in paying quantities within the consolidated area, shall perpetuate the oil and gas rights of lessee under all of said leases in said entire consolidated area and relieve lessee from all further obligation to drill and/or to pay delay rentals under any and all leases covering lands within said area lessee shall not be expressly or impliedly required to drill more than one well for gas upon the consolidated area, or to offset gas wells on contiguous or adjacent premises, regardless of when, where or by whom drilled. It is expressly agreed by the parties hereto that this agreement shall not effect an apportionment of royalty payable on oil, nor shall it constitute a waiver of any rights of lessors to require offsets to oil wells, it being the intention of the parties hereto that the oil royalties remain in the same parties as though this agreement had not been entered into.
“8. This agreement and the rights of lessee under all leases covering tracts within the consolidated area shall be and remain in full force and effect so long as gas is or can be' produced in paying quantities, from any well in said area, and shall not be effected by the expiration of the primary term of said leases or any of them.”

It was further alleged that a well was completed within the consolidated area on the 14th of December, 1945; that it has continuously produced gas in paying quantities from the date of its completion to the present time, and that the unitization agree-men is valid, active, alive and subsisting, and it prayed for appropriate relief.

The court submitted the following issues to the jury:

[438]*438' “Special Issue No. One: Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that at the time Rudolph Grossen-bacher, paid to the plaintiff Otto Rei-nert, the sum of $195.00 that said sum so paid represented the cash consideration for the execution of the lease of date June 15, 1944, or as payment of rentals due in part on a former lease of which the latter lease was a correction?” to which the jury answered that the sum of $195.00 was paid as rental.
“Special Issue No. Two: Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence in this case that at the time Otto Reinert and wife signed and delivered the instrument known as the 'Gas Division Order and Operating Agreement’, of date February 8, 1944, to Rudolph Grossenbacher, as lessee, that said instrument was delivered upon the condition that all parties owning an interest in the contemplated block should sign the same before it was to become effective?”, to which the jury answered “Yes.”
“Special Issue No. Three: Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that any person or persons, owning an interest in the land constituting the proposed drilling block, failed ‘to sign said ‘Division Order and Operating Agreement?’, to which the jury answered ‘No’.”

On the verdict of the jury the court found and decreed that the Lone Star Gas Company is entitled to file its bill of inter-pleader, and that no party to the action is asking or claiming any right or action against it, and the Gas Company was allowed to go hence with its costs other than attorney’s fees, which it waived. The court further decreed that Otto Reinert and wife, Dora Reinert, do recover judgment against all of the parties necessary and indispensable to this suit for the title and possession of all the oil, gas and other minerals in, under, or to be produced from his 195 acres of land, and described it by metes and bounds, subject, however, to the oil and gas and other mineral leases between Otto Reinert and wife as lessors, to Rudolph Grossenbacher, as lessee of date June 15,, 1944, as corrected by lease 'dated June 15, 1944, between the same lessors and lessee, which said lease was perpetuated by the completion of a producing gas-well on such tract.

The court further found that the instrument called the Gas Division Order and Operating Agreement, dated February 8, 1944, executed by Walter Kuklies and wife, Eline Kuklies, L. E.

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Kuklies v. Reinert
256 S.W.2d 435 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1953)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
256 S.W.2d 435, 2 Oil & Gas Rep. 794, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kuklies-v-reinert-texapp-1953.