United Gas Public Service Co. v. Mitchell

177 So. 697, 188 La. 651, 1937 La. LEXIS 1306
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedNovember 2, 1937
DocketNo. 34339.
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 177 So. 697 (United Gas Public Service Co. v. Mitchell) 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
United Gas Public Service Co. v. Mitchell, 177 So. 697, 188 La. 651, 1937 La. LEXIS 1306 (La. 1937).

Opinion

O’NIELL, Chief Justice.

The United Gas Public Service Company is appealing from a judgment dismissing its suit on an exception of no cause or right of action. The object of the suit is to enjoin the defendants from drilling oil wells on — or otherwise interfering with the plaintiff’s alleged right of possession of — a tract of land having an area of 7.35 acres, which the plaintiff claims forms a part of a tract of land on which the plaintiff has an oil and gas lease.

On the 30th day of March, 1933, W. H. Mitchell and his wife, Minnie A'. Mitchell, granted to R. W. Norton the lease which the plaintiff now holds, describing the land thus:

“Northwest Quarter of the Southeast Quarter (NWÍ4 of SE%) and the Southwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter (SW% of NEi/4) of Sec. 20, Tp. 23 N., R. 16 W., containing 112.36 acres, more or less, and for rental-paying purposes and all other purposes of this lease estimated to contain 112.36 acres, but this lease shall cover and include all land owned or claimed by lessors contiguous to or forming a part of the land described or referred to above, whether the same be more or less than the estimated acreage.”

The lease was recorded in the conveyance records of Caddo Parish on the 31st day of March, 1933.

On the 15th day of April, 1933, Norton made an assignment of his right, title and interest in the lease to the United Gas Public Service Company, and the assignment was recorded in the conveyance records of Caddo Parish on the 20th day of April, 1933. The lease was described in the assignment as the lease made by W. H. Mitchell and his wife, Minnie A. Mitchell, to R. W. Norton, on the 30th day of March, 1933, of the NW% of SE% and SWy4 of NEJ4 of section 20, in T. 23 N., R. 16 W., containing 112.36 acres, more or less, in Caddo Parish; but the all-embracing clause, at the end of the description in the original lease, viz.: “but this lease shall cover and include all land owned or claimed by lessors contiguous to or forming part of the land described or referred to above, whether the same be more or less than the estimated acreage,” was omitted from the description in the assignment of the lease.

On the 29th day of September, 1936— which was only three days before this suit was filed — Norton gave to the United Gas Public Service Company what is called in the company’s petition in this suit “a supplemental and corrected assignment,” in which it is recited that, whereas some question was raised as to whether the assignment covered all of the land included in the lease which Norton acquired from W. H. Mitchell and his wife, Minnie A. Mitchell, on the 30th of March, 1933, now, therefore, Norton acknowledges that the *655 assignment which he made to the United Gas Public Service Company covered and included all of the land described in the lease which he acquired from the Mitchells, and which he describes in the corrected assignment exactly as it was described in the original lease, including the all-embracing clause. This supplement or explanation of the original assignment was record.ed in the conveyance records of Caddo Parish on the 2d day of October, 1936, being the day on which this suit was filed.

W. H. Mitchell died in 1934; and on the 1st day of August, 1936, the widow and heirs of Mitchell granted to- C. P. McCrary and A. Holiby a mineral lease on the tract of land having an. area of 7.35 acres, immediately south, of and adjoining the NE34 of SE1/^ of section 20, which is covered by the United Gas Public Service Company’s lease. The lease of • the 7.35 acres to McCrary and Holiby was recorded on the 12th day of August, 1936, and on the next following day McCrary and Holiby made and recorded an assignment of the lease to R. L. Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company, a Delaware corporation. Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company went into possession of the 7.35 acres of land immediately after acquiring the lease on it, and erected a building on the land and commenced drilling, for oil or gas. The United Gas Public Service Company promptly brought this suit for an injunction against the widow and heirs of the deceased W. H. Mitchell, and against C. P. McCrary and A. Holiby, and R. L. Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company, and for a cancellation of the lease of the 7.35 acres of land by the widow and heirs of W. H. Mitchell to McCrary and Holiby, and for a cancellation of the assignment made by McCrary and Holiby to Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company. While the suit was pending, the lessees, Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company, completed a producing oil well on the 7.35 acres of land; and the defendants then filed a supplemental petition, asking for a judicial sequestration of the property. Thereafter the plaintiff filed another supplemental petition, charging that the defendants, Mc-Crary and Holiby, and Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company, had entered into a conspiracy to induce the widow and heirs of W. H. Mitchell to violate their obligations under the plaintiff’s lease; hence the plaintiff reserved the right to sue the defendants for damages. The prayer for a judicial sequestration was never acted upon, because the defendants, in response to each of the three petitions, pleaded that the plaintiff had no cause or right of action, and the plea was sustained and the suit dismissed.

The 7.35 acres of land in dispute is the northern part of the SE^ of SE14 of section 20, and is claimed by the widow and heirs of W. H. Mitchell by prescription, by occupancy and possession of the land, under fence, for moré than thirty years. In the case of Foscue v. Mitchell, 185 La. 963, .171 So. 91, the plaintiffs, John W. Foscue and others, having a recorded title for the SE14 of SE% of section 20, sought, unsuccessfully, to enjoin the drilling of the well which caused also the present suit.

*657 The defendants’ plea, that the plaintiff has no cause or right of action, is founded upon two separate and distinct propositions, viz.:

1. That the 7.35 acres, on which the defendants, R. L. Bauman and the McAlester Fuel Company, have a lease, was not so described in the plaintiff’s lease as to be embraced therein, especially in so far as the rights acquired by third parties are concerned.

2. That, if it should be held that the defendant’s lease covers the 7.35 acres in question, south of and adjoining the 112.36 acres described in the plaintiff’s lease, the case would be governed by the decision in Gulf Refining Co. v. Glassell et al., 186 La. 190, 214, 171 So. 846, 854, maintaining —as stated specifically in the per curiam refusing a rehearing — “that a lessee of the usual mineral or gas and oil lease has no real right in or servitude on the leased land and is not a judgment creditor type obligee and therefore cannot in his own right or name, institute a petitory or pos-sessory action.”

The plaintiff, answering the defendants’ second contention, claims a right of action under the doctrine of Esmele v. Violet Trapping Co., 187 La. 728, 175 So. 471, having reference to a lease for trapping purposes, and also under the doctrine of Smith v. Kennon, 188 La. 101, 175 So. 763, where the case of Gulf Refining Co. v. Glassell is distinguished from Smith v. Kennon.

Of course, if the facts of this case subject it to the doctrine of the case of Gulf Refining Co. v. Glassell, the plaintiff has no cause or right of action.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
177 So. 697, 188 La. 651, 1937 La. LEXIS 1306, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-gas-public-service-co-v-mitchell-la-1937.