Snow v. MacDonnell

378 So. 2d 611, 66 Oil & Gas Rep. 499, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3165
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 19, 1979
DocketNo. 7228
StatusPublished

This text of 378 So. 2d 611 (Snow v. MacDonnell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Snow v. MacDonnell, 378 So. 2d 611, 66 Oil & Gas Rep. 499, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3165 (La. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

FORET, Judge.

Plaintiff, Mrs. Phyllis Hoag Snow, brought this action against her sister, Mrs. Mildred Hoag MacDonnell, to assert her claim to the ownership of:

“All of that property in Section One (1), Township Ten(10) South, Range Three(3) West, occupied and comprising the right-of-way known as U.S.Highway 90 being a strip of land approximately seventy-five (75') feet in width and approximately three thousand (3000') feet long.”

Plaintiff also seeks to cancel and erase an oil, gas and mineral lease granted by her sister, Mrs. MacDonnell, to one Gene T. Oliver, who subsequently assigned the lease to Pioneer Production Company1 (hereinafter referred to as Pioneer). Intervening in this lawsuit is one C. B. Pearce, the assignee of a mineral lease granted by Mrs. Phyllis Hoag Snow to one Sandra Thiels, which was subsequently assigned to Pearce. C. B. Pearce claims that his lease covers all of the mineral rights under the 1.05 acre tract in dispute. On the other hand, Pioneer claims a valid lease on one-half of the minerals underlying the tract in dispute.

The record indicates that Mrs. Snow, Mrs. MacDonnell, and a deceased, brother, Phillip H. Hoag, Jr., who died intestate, without ascendents or descendents, were the sole heirs of Phillip H. Hoag, Sr., who died on August 19,1938, and whose wife, Mrs. Clara Mayes Hoag, had predeceased her husband. The record further reveals that when Phillip Hoag, Sr. died, that the three children inherited his property, in undivided portions of a one-third each. However, there is nothing in the succession proceedings of Phillip Hoag, Sr. wherein the above property is mentioned. Likewise, in the succession proceedings of Phillip Hoag, Jr., there is no specific mention of the property in dispute.

By act of partition dated April 16, 1963, Mrs. Phyllis Snow and her sister, Mrs. Mae-Donnell, sought to partition the properties which they had inherited. Again, no specific mention was made of the property in dispute. In 1964, apparently to correct and to show their true intention in the partition of April 16,1963, Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Mac-Donnell again entered into an act of partition, and therein it was stated that the 1964 agreement was intended to be a “full, final and complete partition of the property belonging to the Succession of Phillip Howard Hoag, deceased, and further that Phyllis Hoag was to receive all of the immovable property of Phillip Howard Hoag in the southwest quarter of Section 1”. Then the 1964 partition went on to describe in particularity two separate tracts of land located in Section 1; however, again, no specific mention was made of the property in dispute.

Subsequent to the 1963 and 1964 partition agreements, Mrs. Phyllis Hoag Snow granted a mineral lease on the property in dispute to one Sandra Thiels, the said lease being dated November 8, 1973. On December 3, 1973, Clara Mildred MacDonnell granted a mineral lease on the property in dispute to one Gene T. Oliver.

To further complicate matters, on October 1, 1975, Mrs. MacDonnell executed a quitclaim deed in favor of Mrs. Snow. The quitclaim deed purported to. convey from Mrs. MacDonnell to Mrs. Snow all of her right, title and interest to the following described property:

“Any and all lands located or situated in Section 12 and Section 16, Township 10 South, Range 3 West, La., Mer., . land under the rights of ways of U. S. Highway 90 and the Southern Pacific Railroad land traversing said Sections 12 and 16.” (Emphasis provided)

The complication in this deed is that neither Mrs. MacDonnell nor Mrs. Snow, nor any of their ancestors in title ever owned any property in Section 16, Township 10 South, [613]*613Range 3 West. The record further shows that neither U. S. Highway 90 nor Southern Pacific Railroad traverses any portion of the said Section 16. As a matter of fact, Section 16 is situated several miles to the south and east of U. S. 90. On the other hand, both U. S. Highway 90 and Southern Pacific Railroad traverses Section 1, Township 10 South, Range 3 West. Therefore, it is obvious to us that the reference to Section 16 should have been to Section 1 of said township and range.

There is little doubt that the parties, by the 1963 partition agreement, as amended in 1964, and as further clarified in the 1975 quitclaim deed, intended that Mrs. MacDon-nell was transferring all of her right in the disputed property to Mrs. Snow.

It is well settled in our jurisprudence that parol evidence is admissible to correct errors ■ in description of property. Brulatour v. Teche Sugar Co., 209 La. 717, 25 So.2d 444 (1946); Smith v. Chappell, 177 La. 811, 148 So. 242 (1933). Parol evidence is admissible to establish identification of property conveyed where the description in an act of sale is ambiguous, so long as there is a sufficient description in the act to leave the title substantially resting on the writing and not essentially on parol evidence. Bostick v. Foret, 351 So.2d 238 (La.App. 4 Cir. 1977), writ denied, La., 352 So.2d 1031. Accordingly, we are of the opinion that the description in the 1975 quitclaim deed is ambiguous and erroneous and there is sufficient parol evidence in the record to correct the description by deleting the reference to Section 16 Township 10 South, Range 3 West and substituting therefor, Section 1 of the said township and range.

We therefore conclude that the 1.05 acre tract, title to which devolved from the Succession of Phillip H. Hoag, Sr., Vs to Phyllis Hoag Snow, Vs to Mrs. Clara Mildred Hoag MacDonnell, and Vs to Phillip Howard Hoag, Jr., is now owned by Mrs. Phyllis Hoag Snow in to to. We will therefore amend the trial court judgment and will declare Mable Phyllis Hoag Snow to be the sole owner of the property in dispute here- . in.

RIGHTS OF MINERAL LESSEES

Inasmuch as the public records doctrine is a major issue herein, we note at the outset that the partitions, quitclaim deed, mineral leases, etc. mentioned hereinabove were properly and timely placed of record in the conveyance records of Jefferson Davis Parish, the parish wherein the property in dispute is situated.

Intervenor, Pearce, lessee of Mrs. Snow, claims that the recordation of the 1963 and 1964 partition agreements placed third parties on notice that Mrs. MacDonnell had conveyed all of her interests in the disputed property, and that third parties, including lessee, Gene T. Oliver, and his assignee, Pioneer Production Company, were properly put on notice. On the other hand, Pioneer claims that the omnibus description in the 1964 deed is not effective as notice to third persons because it is an omnibus description, and further, that two tracts were described in particularity,2 neither of which include the property in dispute. The trial court held that Pioneer was not placed on notice as a third party, and that therefore the mineral leases on the disputed tract are valid in the proportions of one-half each to Pearce and Pioneer. We agree and affirm that portion of the trial court judgment.

As mentioned above, the trial court found that the property description in the various deeds, etc. did not put third parties on notice of the transfer of the property here in dispute. The case of Daigle v. Calcasieu National Bank in Lake Charles, 200 La. 1006, 9 So.2d 394 (1942) involved a contest between a vendee claiming under an omnibus description and a subsequent vendee who was a third party to the former transaction.

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Related

Bostick v. Foret
351 So. 2d 238 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1977)
JH Jenkins Contractors, Inc. v. Farriel
246 So. 2d 340 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1971)
Smith v. Chappell
148 So. 242 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1933)
Paul Klopstock & Co. v. United Fruit Co.
149 So. 462 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1933)
Daigle v. Calcasieu Nat. Bank in Lake Charles
9 So. 2d 394 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1942)
Brulatour v. Teche Sugar Co.
25 So. 2d 444 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1946)
Williams v. Bowie Lumber Co.
38 So. 2d 729 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1948)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
378 So. 2d 611, 66 Oil & Gas Rep. 499, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3165, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/snow-v-macdonnell-lactapp-1979.