Home/Court of Appeals of Texas/Thomas Jordan, Inc. v. Skelly Oil Company

Thomas Jordan, Inc. v. Skelly Oil Company

296 S.W.2d 279, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2365
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 8, 1956
Docket6886
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 296 S.W.2d 279 (Thomas Jordan, Inc. v. Skelly Oil Company) 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
Thomas Jordan, Inc. v. Skelly Oil Company, 296 S.W.2d 279, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2365 (Tex. Ct. App. 1956).

Opinion

FANNING, Justice.

This is a boundary suit cast in the form of a trespass to try title suit, for the recovery of 129 acres of land, more or less, alleged to be a part of the Clark Simmons Survey in Marion County, Texas, and for an accounting for oil produced by defendants from oil wells on said'tract. Plaintiffs in the case were landowners, holding and claiming under the said Clark Simmons *281 survey, which survey was patented on February 8, 1854. The list of plaintiffs includes D. C. Rowell, W. Torrans Rowell; their two sisters, Mrs. Fannie Myers and her husband, W. F. Myers, and Mrs. Katherine Birmingham and her husband, A. L. Birmingham; Isidore Segal; George Earl Haggard; and various heirs of Felix Lewis, together with their respective mineral assignees, and lessees, Stanolind Oil & Gas Company and Shelly Oil Company. Defendants in the case were Thomas Jordan, Inc., and Humble Oil & Refining Company, who were claimants under an oil and gas lease from the State of Texas, dated June 15, 1950, covering a part of Mineral File 24,205, also known as the O. P. Deaner File. The State of Texas intervened as a defendant in .the cause. The accounting features of the case were severed out; the. boundary case was tried to the court without a jury and judgment was rendered for the plaintiffs for the title and possession of the tract sued for. The trial court filed findings of fact, an amendment thereto, and conclusions of law. Defendants’ objections and exceptions to the trial court’s findings were overruled. Defendants, including the State of Texas, have appealed.-

On February 4, 1854, the State of Texas issued its Patent No. 743 to “John Wood-ley, Assignee of Clark Simmons,” in which are found the following recitations and field notes:

“do by these presents grant to John Woodley, Assignee of Clark Simmons, his heirs and assigns forever, niné hundred and eighty and a half acres of land, situated and described as follows:
“In Cass County, near Black and Big-Cypress, on Ferry Lake, being the tract on which the town of Smithland is located, * * *
“Beginning at the S. E. corner of a survey in the name of Isaac Jones, on the N. W. line of B. F. Lynn’s Survey a stake from which a pine bears S. 45° W. 8 varas, another bears S. 70° W. 6 varas both marked J. W.
“Thence West, 1746 varas to a stake on the south line of M. R. Jones’ Survey, from which a black oak bears S. 20° E. 14 varas, another bears S. 29° E. 24 varas, both marked J. W.
“Thence South 45° W. 3300 varas to a forked water oak, on th.e north side of Ferry Lake, near the junction of Big and Black Cypress, from which an elm bears S. 92° W. 8½ varas, a pine bears S. 70° E. all marked J. W.
“Thence South 45° E. 1389 varas to B. F. Lynn’s N. W. line. Thence North 45° E. with the N. W. line of said Lynn’s Survey to the place of beginning.”

Appellees’ theory of the case' is illustrated by its Exhibit No. 186, which shows the Clark Simmons Survey to be a riparian survey including the old town of Smithland and showing no vacancy between the Clark Simmons Survey and the river (or Ferry Lake). A copy of Plaintiffs’ Exhibit No. 186 was attached and made a part of the trial court’s findings. Appellants contend that the Clark Simmons Survey should be constructed largely ori calls for course and" distance and that in particular the .southwest boundary of the Clark Simmons Survey was a straight line as called for in its field notes, and was not the riyer or lake. Appellants’ various theories are illustrated by Defendants’ Exhibit No. 9 Iwhich shows the Clark Simmons Survey ¿s not extending to the river and leaving ‘ a vacancy of 129 acres of land, more or less, between the Clark Simmons Survey and the river (or Ferry Lake). We here attach copies of Plaintiffs’ Exhibit No. 186 and Defendants’ Exhibit No. 9. We also attach herewith a copy of Plaintiffs’ Exhibit No. 1, which is plaintiffs’ basic map of the Clark .Simmons and surrounding area as constructed by plaintiffs.

(Note: The Clark Simmons Survey when patented in 1854 was in Cass County, Texas. It is now in Marion County, Texas.)

*282

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Bluebook (online)
296 S.W.2d 279, 1956 Tex. App. LEXIS 2365, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thomas-jordan-inc-v-skelly-oil-company-texapp-1956.