Wagstaff v. Matthews

730 S.W.2d 839, 97 Oil & Gas Rep. 633, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 7186
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 30, 1987
DocketNo. 12-86-0167-CV
StatusPublished

This text of 730 S.W.2d 839 (Wagstaff v. Matthews) 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
Wagstaff v. Matthews, 730 S.W.2d 839, 97 Oil & Gas Rep. 633, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 7186 (Tex. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

COLLEY, Justice.

This suit involves a dispute over the ownership of lignite deposits underlying an 80-acre tract of land located in Panola County. The trial court, after a jury trial, signed a judgment in favor of A.P. Matthews, Jr., plaintiff/appellee (Matthews). We affirm the judgment.

The documentary evidence reveals the following undisputed facts and circumstances. On May 6,1968, Matthews signed and delivered a coal and lignite lease (plaintiff’s exhibit no. 1) to “Bob M. Lloyd, Trustee,” 1 covering two tracts of land recited to contain 132.12 acres embracing the 80 acres in question. The lease provided for payments to Matthews of annual rentals as well as royalties for lignite mined and removed from the premises during the term of the lease. On November 3, 1969, Matthews conveyed the 80 acres to the Veterans Land Board of Texas2 (plaintiff’s exhibit 2, hereafter referred to as “the deed”). The deed contained, inter alia, the following provisions to wit:

IT IS SPECIFICALLY UNDERSTOOD, HOWEVER, that one half (%) of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under and that may be produced from the tract of land herein conveyed, are excepted and reserved for the benefit of Grantor and the other record owner or owners of such minerals, as their several interests may appear, together with the right of ingress and egress at all times for the purpose of mining, producing, exploring, saving and marketing such minerals, or either of them.3
This conveyance is made subject to the terms and rights now existing under the Coal and Lignite lease in favor of Bob M. Lloyd or any existing Coal and Lignite or Oil and Gas Lease of record covering the above described land, but covers and includes and there is hereby conveyed and granted herein an undivided one half (Vfe) interest in and to all bonuses, rents and royalties due and to be paid under the terms thereof.4

During mining operations and after Texas Utilities Mining Company (TUMCO), the beneficial owner5 of the coal and lignite lease, completed its lignite mining operations on the 80-acre tract, it suspended payment of one-half of the lignite royalties due and payable under the lease because of the disputed ownership thereof. Matthews filed suit against Wagstaff on February 17, 1982, seeking a declaratory judgment that the provisions of the deed reserved to him one-half of the coal and lignite. Matthews filed an amended petition on March 11, 1982, adding Wagstaff’s wife, Carolyn Lu[841]*841cille Wagstaff,6 as a party defendant, and alternatively seeking reformation of the reservation in the deed to specifically include coal and lignite. By trial amendment filed on June 3, 1986, Matthews pleaded mutual mistake of the parties in the omission of the term “ ‘coal and lignite’ from the mineral reservation contained in ... [the deed].”

This case went to trial before a jury, and at the close of the evidence, the court submitted three special issues to the jury. The issues, answers and the court’s explanatory instructions relating thereto are as follows:

You are instructed that under present Law, the term ‘other minerals’ when it appears in a mineral reservation does not include coal and lignite, when the coal and lignite is within two hundred feet of the surface, and any reasonable method of removal would consume, deplete or destroy the surface.
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SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 1
Do you find from the preponderance of the evidence that Plaintiff and Defendant intended that the Deed to the Veterans Land Board reserve one-half of the coal and lignite in the 80-acre tract in favor of A.P. Matthews?
Answer: ‘They did’ or ‘They did not.’
Answer: They did.
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 2
Do you find from the preponderance of the evidence that Plaintiff and Defendant were mutually mistaken as to the legal effect of the mineral reservation contained in the Deed to the Veterans Land Board?
Answer: ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’
Answer: No.
In connection with the foregoing Special Issues you are instructed that by the term ‘mutual mistake,’ it is meant a mistake that is common to both parties to a transaction, each of who [sic] is under the same mistake as to its terms. A ‘mutual mistake’ exists when the parties to an instrument are under a clear agreement as to the factual and legal result they wish to accomplish by it, but the legal effect of the words they use does not produce that result.
SPECIAL ISSUE NO. 3
Do you find from the preponderance of the evidence that Plaintiff and Defendant believed at the time of the execution of the Warranty Deed, that the mineral reservation effectively reserved to Plaintiff a one-half interest in the coal and lignite in the 80-acre tract conveyed to the Veterans Land Board?
Answer: ‘They did’ or ‘They did not.’
Answer: They did.

Based on the jury’s affirmative answers to Special Issues 1 and 3,7 the trial court signed a judgment in favor of Matthews adjudging him to be the “true owner of an undivided one-half (V2) interest in and to the coal and lignite ... [and decreeing] that the Defendant has no right, title or interest in and to one-half (Vfe) of the royalties due and payable under ... any valid and subsisting coal and lignite lease.” (Emphasis ours.)

Wagstaff urges one point of error, contending the trial court erred in overruling his motions for instructed verdict and judgment non obstante veredicto “because the mineral reservation in question did not affirmatively and fairly evidence an intention to reserve coal and lignite.” The motions urged by Wagstaff are all bottomed on the premise that under the decisions in Acker v. Guinn, 464 S.W.2d 348 (Tex.1971); Reed v. Wylie (II), 597 S.W.2d 743 (Tex.1980); and Moser v. U.S. Steel Corp., 676 S.W.2d 99 (Tex.1984), as a matter of law, the mineral reservation did not reserve one-half of the coal and lignite. In this connection, we observe that the parties stipulated at trial that coal and lignite deposits8 were located within 200 feet of the surface of the 80-acre tract, and that “any reasonable meth[842]*842od of removal [thereof] would consume, deplete or destroy the surface.”

Matthews, in answer to Wagstaff’s arguments, refers us to several Supreme Court decisions9 predating Acker v. Guinn, supra, and Reed v. Wylie (II), supra, stating rules of construction to be followed in determining the intention of parties to deeds and conveyances. Matthews claims that Reed v. Wylie, 597 S.W.2d 743, is not applicable to this case, because as the jury found, the parties intended that Matthews was to reserve one-half of the coal and lignite, and that intention was ascertainable 10

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Related

Moser v. United States Steel Corp.
676 S.W.2d 99 (Texas Supreme Court, 1984)
Reed v. Wylie
554 S.W.2d 169 (Texas Supreme Court, 1977)
Garrett v. Dils Company
299 S.W.2d 904 (Texas Supreme Court, 1957)
Reed v. Wylie
597 S.W.2d 743 (Texas Supreme Court, 1980)
Cherokee Water Co. v. Forderhause
641 S.W.2d 522 (Texas Supreme Court, 1982)
Acker v. Guinn
464 S.W.2d 348 (Texas Supreme Court, 1971)
E. B. Germany v. J. B. Turner
123 S.W.2d 874 (Texas Supreme Court, 1939)
Smith v. Jasper County Lumber Co.
76 S.W.2d 505 (Texas Supreme Court, 1934)

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Bluebook (online)
730 S.W.2d 839, 97 Oil & Gas Rep. 633, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 7186, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wagstaff-v-matthews-texapp-1987.