Rendon v. Gulf Oil Corporation

414 S.W.2d 510, 26 Oil & Gas Rep. 502, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2075
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 20, 1967
Docket331
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 414 S.W.2d 510 (Rendon v. Gulf Oil Corporation) 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
Rendon v. Gulf Oil Corporation, 414 S.W.2d 510, 26 Oil & Gas Rep. 502, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2075 (Tex. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

OPINION

SHARPE, Justice.

This appeal is from an order of the district court granting a temporary injunction in favor of Gulf Oil Corporation, ap-pellee, prohibiting and restraining Romeo Rendon, appellant, from refusing to permit appellee and those under contract to it from having free ingress and egress to and from a five acre tract of land situated in Hidalgo County, Texas, and further restraining appellant from interfering in any way with the building of a road along the south boundary line of said tract to permit ingress and egress to the drilling site, and from interfering with the construction and maintenance of all pits, drilling equipment, tanks and other apparatus used in the drilling of an oil or gas well on said tract.

Appellee, Gulf Oil Corporation, as plaintiff, alleged in substance the following: That it is the owner of an oil and gas lease dated August 11, 1964, on the tract in question; that defendant Rendon is the owner of the surface of said property; that under said lease plaintiff, as lessee, is granted the privilege of locating a drilling site for oil and gas on said property and has the right of constructing a road to provide ingress; and egress to and from a drilling site and the right to locate equipment such as is necessarily and customarily used in the operation of drilling oil or gas wells on. said property; that plaintiff had entered into a contract with third parties to locate a rig and drill a well on said tract and to construct a road along its south boundary connecting with U. S. Highway 281; that said lease among other things provided that the lessee shall pay the owner of the leased premises a reasonable sum for damages resulting to the premises or improvements which may be caused by or result from the operations of the lessee under said lease; that said five acre tract is not under cultivation, has no improvements or citrus trees thereon and no business activities are being conducted thereon, and no reason exists to deny plaintiff its right to locate a *512 drill site thereon; that defendant without valid or legal reason has arbitrarily refused to permit plaintiff’s agent or the agents of its contractor to come upon the premises and to commence the construction of a road or the setting up of a drilling rig; that such conduct on the part of defendant is unwarranted and contrary to the legal rights of plaintiff and is causing damage to it at least in the sum of $1700.00 per diem; that unless defendant is restrained he will cause irreparable injury to plaintiff for which there is no adequate remedy at law; that defendant has an adequate remedy at law for all damages that he may sustain or which may be sustained in due course after drilling operations have commenced. Plaintiff prayed for a temporary restraining order without notice and upon hearing for temporary injunction.

Rendon filed an unsworn original answer in which he denied generally the allegations of Gulf’s petition and further denied “that the proposed uses by the Plaintiff of the property which is the subject of this action are in all things reasonable and necessary for the fulfillment of any purported right that Plaintiff might have, but instead would show unto the Court that such use or proposed use by Plaintiff is arbitrary and unreasonable and would in effect deprive Defendant of the substantial use and enjoyment of his property and would render his property substantially valueless.” By way of cross action Rendon alleged in substance that Gulf had unlawfully entered upon his property and damaged same in connection with the establishment of a drilling site or other obnoxious installation and that he was entitled to recover $20,000.00 for actual damages and $40,000.00 for exemplary damages against Gulf as cross-defendant.

The trial court required Gulf to give bond in the amount of $10,000.00 in connection with the orders granting temporary restraining order and temporary injunction.

On this appeal appellant urges three points of error as follows:

“FIRST POINT OF ERROR
The Trial Court erred in granting a temporary injunction in this cause for the reason that by its said order, and by the temporary restraining order which preceded it, the Trial Court in effect removed Appellant from his prior, peaceable possession of realty and instead gave possession of such realty to Appellee, who had never been in possession; thereby changing the status quo rather than preserving it, and also granting Appellee in substance all of the relief which it sought, which action of the Court infringed upon Appellant’s constitutional right to a trial by jury of property rights at a hearing on the merits.
SECOND POINT OF ERROR
The Trial Court erred in granting the temporary injunction in question for the reason that Appellee failed to demonstrate a probable claim to the property in question, or to the right to possession thereof.
THIRD POINT OF ERROR
The Trial Court erred in granting the temporary injunction in question for the reason that Appellee failed to demonstrate probable irreparable injury to it if the injunction were not granted, or the inadequacy of any remedy at law.”

We have concluded that appellant’s points should be overruled and the judgment of the trial court affirmed.

At the hearing on the temporary injunction in the court below the parties stipulated that sixteen exhibits should be admitted into evidence and considered by the trial court for all purposes. In addition ap-pellee offered the testimony of Mr. Floyd White, its employee, who had the title of “Landman”. One of the exhibits considered by the trial court was the lease of said five acre tract executed August 11, 1964, filed for record on October 28, 1964 and later as *513 signed to appellee. Another exhibit, a deed to Romeo Rendon dated March 11, 1966, contained an express provision as follows: “Subject to Mineral Reservations of record and Oil and Gas Leases of record, if any.” Appellee, as lessee under the above mentioned lease, was given the right of investigating, exploring, prospecting, drilling and mining for and producing oil, gas and other minerals, laying pipelines, building roads, power stations, telephone lines and other structures thereon, over and across lands owned or claimed by lessor adjacent thereto to produce, save, take, take care of, treat, transport and own said products on the five acre tract in question. The record further shows that appellee has established a gas unit of 351.81 acres and its geological department has located a drilling site upon appellant’s property.

The sworn petition of appellee alleged that appellant refused without just cause to permit the agents of appellee ingress and egress to the property in question for the purpose of building a road and establishing a drill site. Mr. White testified in support of such allegation and further said that the only reason appellant ever gave for refusing entrance was that he wanted a money damage settlement in advance for the anticipated damages to the surface of the five acre tract owned by him. Appellant was not personally present at the hearing on the application for temporary injunction and offered no evidence, except his counsel stipulated to introduction of exhibits tendered by appellee.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
414 S.W.2d 510, 26 Oil & Gas Rep. 502, 1967 Tex. App. LEXIS 2075, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rendon-v-gulf-oil-corporation-texapp-1967.