Stanolind Oil & Gas Co. v. Thomas Gilcrease Foundation

262 S.W.2d 756, 3 Oil & Gas Rep. 668, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2086
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 24, 1953
Docket4954
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 262 S.W.2d 756 (Stanolind Oil & Gas Co. v. Thomas Gilcrease Foundation) 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
Stanolind Oil & Gas Co. v. Thomas Gilcrease Foundation, 262 S.W.2d 756, 3 Oil & Gas Rep. 668, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2086 (Tex. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

FRASER, Justice.

This is an appeal from the District Court of Ector County, Texas, and from a summary judgment of said court. The case involves the construction of an oil, gas and mineral lease executed and delivered by Gilcrease Oil Company to Stanolind Oil & Gas Company, dated April 17, 1946, but executed and acknowledged June 5, 1946. The trial court granted the motion of plaintiff for a summary judgment, and for purposes of clarity plaintiff will be referred to in this opinion as “Gilcrease” or “plaintiff”, as was the case in the trial court, and defendant as either “defendant” or “Stam>-lind”.

Plaintiff, Thomas Gilcrease Foundation, had acquired its title from the Gilcrease Oil Company, which corporation had entered into a lease with Stanolind covering oil, gas and mineral rights on “the North ½ of Section 32, Lot 44, Twp 1 S, T & P Ry. Co. Survey, in Ector County, Texas,” which lease contained certain typewritten provisions, as well as the usual printed provisions. Although the description in said lease referred to the north half of said Section 32, plaintiff actually owned an undivided ¾ interest in the mineral rights of the N.E. ½ of said section, and an undivided ¾, interest in the N.W. ⅛ of said Section 32. In addition to the usual provisions, the lease between plaintiff and defendant had attached to it a rider which contained a provision which has been described as an “entirety clause”. This rider recited as follows:

“Lessor reserves unto itself, its successors and assigns, and excepts from this lease contract, an undivided one-eighth (⅛) of seven-eighths (/%) of eight-eighths (⅜) oil, gas, casinghead gas, and other minerals in place, and if, as and when produced, saved and sold, from the lands above described, until out of the proceeds from such fractional production interest lessor has received the sum of $160,000.00, being $500.00 per acre upon the 320 acres above described, said fractional production interest allocated to retirement of the oil reservation amount above shall have the legal status of an overriding royalty and shall be free and clear of all development and operating expenses and charges of every nature, such interest, however, to bear its own ad valorem taxation, and its proportionate share of any gross production, pipe line, and/or occupation tax, federal or state; upon retirement of the oil reservation amount above shown, said fractional production interest shall automatically pass to and vest in lessee, its successors and assigns.
"The oil reservation amount above is not a personal obligation of lessee, but shall be derived only out of production, as above shown, and the creation of said oil reservation amount shall in no wise impose upon lessee any development obligation other than may be created by the specific terms and provisions of this lease.
“If lessor owns an interest in the oil, gas and other minerals in said lands *758 less than the entire fee estate in said oil, gas and other minerals, then the oil reservation amount hereinabove provided and the fractional production interest allocated to its retirement shall be reduced proportionately, the lessor herein being entitled to that part of the oil reservation amount above created as is proportionate to the title of the lessor in the oil, gas and other minerals.
“If the leased premises are now or shall hereafter be owned in severalty or in separate tracts, the premises, nevertheless, shall be developed and operated as one lease, and all royalties accruing hereunder shall be treated as an entirety and shall be divided among • and paid to such separate owners in the proportion that the acreage owned by each such separate owner bears to the entire leased acreage.”

In addition to the undivided interests held by Gilcrease, other parties had interests as appears from the following diagram:

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Related

Thomas Gilcrease Foundation v. Stanolind Oil & Gas Co.
266 S.W.2d 850 (Texas Supreme Court, 1954)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
262 S.W.2d 756, 3 Oil & Gas Rep. 668, 1953 Tex. App. LEXIS 2086, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stanolind-oil-gas-co-v-thomas-gilcrease-foundation-texapp-1953.