State ex rel. Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate v. Debaillon

37 So. 534, 113 La. 619, 1904 La. LEXIS 683
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedNovember 21, 1904
DocketNo. 15,407
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 37 So. 534 (State ex rel. Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate v. Debaillon) 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
State ex rel. Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate v. Debaillon, 37 So. 534, 113 La. 619, 1904 La. LEXIS 683 (La. 1904).

Opinion

Statement of the Case.

NICHOLLS, J.

On tbe 17th of October, 1904, in the matter of the Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate v. Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company (No. 2,120 on the docket of the Eighteenth Judicial District court for the parish of Acadia), a writ of injunction was granted on the petition of the plaintiffs by F. M. Fontenot, chief deputy clerk for said court, in the absence from that parish of the district judge and the district clerk, directed against the defendants the Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company and others, enjoining and prohibiting them from carrying on any operations for the purpose of boring and constructing wells by means of which to extract oil and gas from the western 40 acres of that part of section 47, township 9 south, of range 2 west, known as the “Latreille Tract,” being the same property covered by the oil and mineral lease executed by Arthur Latreille in favor of S. A.. Spencer on April 19, 1901, by act recorded in the office of the clerk of court of Acadia parish, on April 20, 1901.

This order was carried into execution by the issuing and service of the writ of injunction referred to.

The Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company having applied for the dissolution of the injunction so obtained (for reasons assigned), the plaintiff in injunction was ordered by the-district judge to show cause why said application should not be granted.

The same company (the Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company) also made application to dissolve said injunction on bond (pending this action on motion to dissolve the injunction absolutely), alleging that any injury to the plaintiff would not be irreparable.

The plaintiff in injunction was ruled to [621]*621show cause why this particular prayer should not be granted.

The rule having gone to trial, the court ordered the injunction to be dissolved upon the execution by defendant in injunction of a bond for $1,000.

In his ruling on that subject the district judge used the following language:

“Plaintiff contends that on an application to bond the allegations of the petition [for injunction] are to be taken as true; that the allegations show that the injury sought to be avoided was irreparable.” But the allegations of irreparable injury are not conclusive. Breaux’s Digest, p. 42, No. 15. Nor do these allegations take away from the judge all discretion to dissolve the bond. Breaux’s Digest, p. 425, No. 20.
“In passing upon these questions, we must not lose sight of the case of Houssiere-Latreille Oil Co. v. Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate, now pending before the Supreme Court (No. 15,-304). In that case plaintiff alleged that it had been in possession for more than one year. It alleged trespass on the part of the defendant, and obtained an injunction to prevent further trespass, and for the removal of a derrick constructed thereon by the defendant. It is true that the judgment of the district court was in favor of the defendant, but the plaintiff perfected a suspensive appeal therefrom, and lodged the same in the Supreme Court.
“The question was, and now is, *Who is entitled to the possession of these 40 acres?’ Hence it is now evident that the injury is irreparable, or that the order to bond operates a change of possession of the property involved. Cameron v. Godchaux, 48 La. Ann. 1345, 20 South. 710.”

The plaintiff in injunction (the Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate) next applied to the district court for a suspensive appeal from this last-mentioned ruling, but the district judge refused to grant the appeal; saying that the court having dissolved the injunction on bond, on the ground that the injury was not irreparable, it followed that it could not consistently grant the appeal prayed for.

The present application for a mandamus followed.

The district court was ordered to send the record up, and the district judge ruled to show cause why the mandamus should not be-granted.

In relator’s petition to this court for relief, f.t recited the fact of its having filed a suit vNo. 2,130 on the docket of the Acadia court) entitled “Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate v. Houssiere-Latreille Oil Co,” It annexed to its petition, as part thereof, a transcript of the record in that case, the documents filed, the evidence heard, and the proceedings had therein, and then declared that reference to that transcript would show that in that proceeding an injunction at its instance, directed to the Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company and others, had been granted, but that later the district court had permitted that injunction to be dissolved on a bond, and that it had also refused to grant it (the plaintiff in injunction) a suspensive appeal from the order permitting such bonding, which refusal, it asserted, worked it an irreparable injury.

In the petition which was filed by the Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate in the district court in support of its right to the injunction which it prayed for against the Houssiere-Latreille Oil Company and others, it averred that in April, 1901, a contract was entered into whereby Arthur Latreille leased to S. A. Spencer, his successors and assigns, certain described property in the parish of Acadia for 10 years, for the sole and only purpose of mining and operating for oil, gas, and laying pipe lines, and of building tanks, stations, and structures thereon, to take care of said products, on the terms, and conditions fixed in said contract; that said contract was recorded in Acadia parish on April 20, 1901; that on April 24, 1901, S. A. Spencer transferred and assigned to S. A. Spencer & Co. all the rights which he had acquired from said contract with Latreille, this contract to S. A. Spencer & Co. being recorded on April 26, 1901; that on February 8, 1902, by notarial act before St. Germain, notary, recorded in Acadia parish on February 10, 1901, SA. Spencer & Co. transferred to the Jennings-Heywood Oil Syndicate all the rights which they had acquired from S. A. Spencer, so that it became invested with all the rights which had been acquired by S. A. Spencer from Arthur Latreille; that it and its authors had [623]*623faithfully complied with each and every obligation incurred by S. A.

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81 So. 438 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1919)
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Bluebook (online)
37 So. 534, 113 La. 619, 1904 La. LEXIS 683, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-jennings-heywood-oil-syndicate-v-debaillon-la-1904.