State v. Magnolia Petroleum Co.

173 S.W.2d 186, 1943 Tex. App. LEXIS 449
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 23, 1943
DocketNo. 11308.
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 173 S.W.2d 186 (State v. Magnolia Petroleum Co.) 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
State v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 173 S.W.2d 186, 1943 Tex. App. LEXIS 449 (Tex. Ct. App. 1943).

Opinion

MURRAY, Justice.

This suit was instituted by appellee, Magnolia Petroleum Company, a corporation, in trespass to try title against L. W. Stieren for the title and possession of all the oil, gas and other minerals in and under 480 acres of public free school land, which land had been previously sold by the State to Stieren’s lessor bearing a mineral classification.

*188 The State of Texas intervened, by and through its Attorney General, and asserted its claim to the oil, gas and other minerals in and under such land as a part of the free school fund of Texas. It also requested the court to set aside and cancel, as clouds upon its title, two certain instruments under which Magnolia Petroleum Company claimed title to the oil, gas and other minerals in and under such land, to-wit:

(1) A certain mineral or royalty deed dated May 10, 1923, whereby F. E. Pryor, the then owner of the surface estate in such land, purported to convey the State’s mineral estate in and -under such land to the Trustees of the Magnolia Petroleum Company.

(2) A certain assignment of the interest acquired by such Trustees under the said mineral or royalty deed to Magnolia Petroleum Company, a corporation, dated April 19, 1926.

The Magnolia Petroleum .Company answered the State’s intervention by general denial, a plea of not guilty, and alleged title as against the State by cross-action in trespass to try title. The State answered the Magnolia’s cross-action by a plea of not guilty.

Stieren, the original defendant, filed a disclaimer in the trial court, and the State and the Magnolia Company submitted the case to the court, without the intervention of a jury, upon an agreed case, under Rule 263, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

The trial court rendered judgment that the Magnolia Petroleum Company recover of and from the State of Texas and L. W. Stieren, “title and possession of, according to the terms and provisions of that certain instrument dated May 10, 1923, executed by F. E. Pryor and wife, Pearl Pryor, to John Sealy, E. R. Brown, R. Waverley Smith, E. E. Plumly and W. C. Proctor, as Trustee of the Magnolia Petroleum Company, such instrument being of record in Volume 87, page 242, Deed Records of Webb County, Texas, and according to the provisions of the Relinquishment Statutes of the State of Texas, the oil, gas and minerals in and under the following described acreage in Webb County, Texas, to-wit:

“Four Hundred and eighty (480) acres situated in Webb County, Texas, and is a part of Section 264, Certificate 3699, G. C. & S. F. Ry. Co., Block 2, * * *.”

From this judgment the State has prosecuted this appeal.

The State, appellant herein, contends that under the agreed statement of facts it was entitled to judgment cancelling the mineral deed and the assignment thereof to the Magnolia Petroleum Company, appellee herein, and, further, to judgment awarding to it the title and possession of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under the 480 acres involved.

The real question herein is whether or not F. E. Pryor and his wife, Pearl Pryor, as owners of the surface rights of the 480 acres could properly execute a mineral deed conveying 15/16ths of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under the land to the Magnolia Petroleum Company, which would effectively convey all or any part of such minerals to such Company in fee simple.

It is apparent from the wording of the judgment that the trial court intended' to-write into the mineral deed all the mandatory provisions of the “Relinquishment Act,” Articles 5367-5382, inclusive, R.C.S. 1925, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. arts. 5367-5382, and allow appellee to recover such interest in the oil, gas and minerals in and under the 480 acres as would be proper under the mineral deed as thus added to- and amended, but does not attempt to set forth what interest this would be. It is also apparent that the trial court intended to require the appellee to pay to the State such bonuses, rentals and royalties as would be required of it under the “Relinquishment Act,” but again the trial court does not set out in detail the amount of such bonuses, rentals and royalties.

. It is further apparent that Pryor and wife believed they were the absolute owners of 15/I6ths of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under this 480 acres, and that they intended to convey this interest to-appellee in fee simple for the cash consideration recited in the deed. Greene v. Robison, 117 Tex. 516, 8 S.W.2d 655, holding to the contrary, was not handed down until some five years thereafter.

There was already an oil and gas lease on the land held by appellee and it did not need another lease on the same land. The mineral deed had for its purpose the conveying to appellee of all the oil, gas- and other minerals that Pryor and his wife had in the 480 acres, and such interest is clearly stated, to be a 15/16ths interest.

*189 Appellee, in effect, asks this Court to re-write the mineral deed and place in it such provisions as should have been placed therein originally to make it conform to the Relinquishment Act, supra.

Let us see what this would require. It would first call for a provision to the effect that the instrument, was executed for and in behalf of the State of Texas, and that the Pryors were merely acting as agents. Second, that the State was retaining not a 1 /16th mineral interest but a l/16th royalty. Third, that only the gas and oil was sold and not the other minerals. Fourth, that until production was begun the grantee should pay to the State a rental of some amount not less than 10‡ per acre per annum. There should also be a provision that failure to pay the rental when due would terminate the lease. It is perfectly obvious that this Court cannot write all these provisions into the mineral deed. It would be to set aside the contract actually made by the parties and for the Court to write quite a different and new contract.

The proper construction of the Relinquishment Act, supra, was before the Supreme Court in Greene v. Robison, 117 Tex. 516, 8 S.W.2d 655, 659. This decision was written in 1928, some five years after the mineral deed herein had been executed. Since that decision the law has been settled that the Relinquishment Act does not vest any interest or title in the oil and gas in and under mineral-reserved school lands in the owner of the surface estate, but merely makes him the agent of the State for the purpose of leasing such land for oil and gas. If the Supreme Court had held that the Act vested 15/16ths of the minerals in the surface owners, then and in such event the effect of the Act would have been to donate a part of the school lands to private persons which would have been unconstitutional.

In the Greene-Robison case the purpose of the Relinquishment Act is fully discussed; we quote:

“Therefore the very first words of this Mineral Act of 1919 disclosed that one of the purposes of the act was 'to promote the active co-operation of the owner of the soil.’ This calls attention to the conditions that made it desirable to secure the cooperation of the owner of the soil.

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Bluebook (online)
173 S.W.2d 186, 1943 Tex. App. LEXIS 449, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-magnolia-petroleum-co-texapp-1943.