Wilkins v. Nelson

99 So. 607, 155 La. 807, 1924 La. LEXIS 1880
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedMarch 17, 1924
DocketNo. 26045
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 99 So. 607 (Wilkins v. Nelson) 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
Wilkins v. Nelson, 99 So. 607, 155 La. 807, 1924 La. LEXIS 1880 (La. 1924).

Opinion

THOMPSON, J.

This is an action to set aside a sale of all of the oil, gas, and mineral rights in and to and under 120 acres of land situated in the parish of Ouachita, on the ground of lesion beyond moiety. An exception of no cause of action was sustained, plaintiff’s suit dismissed, and he appeals.

The sale was executed by plaintiff to defendant Oscar Nelson on. March 19, 1919. The price paid was $900 cash ánd one-eighth interest in and to all of the oil produced or saved from said land.

The petition alleges, in substance, that the „land is situated in the heart of the gas field, with producing wells of 15,000,000 to 30,000,-000 cubic feet of gas per day all around it, and that there is now one on the very land producing 16,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day; that the said gas well on the said land was completed about December 23, 1921; that the valué of the mineral rights on and under the land was well worth the price of $50,000; that petitioner was ignorant of such things and had never had any experience, but that said Oscar Nelson had spent his life in such work; that Nelson has taken out of the land 555,222,000 cubic feet of gas and out of this gas there has been made at least 666,261 pounds of 'carbon, worth at least 15 cents per pound, and that out of the gas has been extracted 60,000 gallons of gasoline worth 18 cents per gallon.

It is further alleged that Nelson transferred all of his right, title, and interest to the Cosmos Carbon Company, a corporation organized and domiciled in' West Virginia; that this corporation is a necessary party to this suit.

In an amended petition it is alleged that Oscar Nelson, plaintiff’s vendee, is the head and ruling spirit of the Cosmos Carbon Company, and that Nelson transferred the property in order to attempt to defeat the plaintiff out of his rights; that the Cosmos Carbon Company is the same person in the eyes of the law as Oscar Nelson; that the Cosmos Carbon Company had knowledge of the defects alleged and could not have taken the property in good faith.

There are at'least two well-grounded reasons why plaintiff’s petition cannot be sustained as showing a legal cause of action. First, because the thing, the subject of the sale, cannot be regarded as one falling within the terms of the law which affords relief on the score of lesion; its 'inherent nature and character being such,as not to be susceptible of having an intrinsic definite and fixable value. Second, because the plaintiff’s petition alleges that his vendee had parted with all of his interest in the mineral rights to a third party. ■ j

[1] 1. When the plaintiff sold to Nelson all of the oil, and gas beneath the surface of his land, he conveyed no title of ownership to any specific thing, separate and distinct from the soil, but merely the fight to drill, capture, and reduce to possession such quantities of the oil and gas as might be found under the ground. The right thus conveyed has been defined to be, or rather is likened to a real or incorporeal right — a right of servitude, in the sense that it is lost for nonuser or nonexercise within a period of 10 years. Frost-Johnson Lumber Co. v. Sailing’s Heirs, 150 La. 856, 91 South. 207, and cases therein collated.

Civil Code, art. 1860, defines lesion to be the injury suffered by one who does not receive a full equivalent for what he gives in a commutative contract. The remedy given [812]*812for the injury is founded on its being the effect of implied error or imposition, or, as said by Mr. Justice Bullard in Copley v. Flint, 1 Rob. 125:

“ * * * A relief founded upon the idea that the vendor has been driven by his necessities to malee a sacrifice so enormous, as to give rise to the presumption that he has been'hardly dealt by.”

In article 1861, Civil Code, it is provided that no relief will be given a person of full age and who is under no incapacity against the effect of his voluntary contracts, on account of such implied error or imposition, except in the two following cases:

(1) In partitions where there is a difference in the value of the ‘portions to more than the amount of one-fourth to the'prejudice of one of the parties;

(2) In sales of immovable property, the vendor may be relieved, if the price given is less than &ne-half of the value of the thing sold.

Article 1862 provides that lesion can be alleged by persons of full age in ho othersale than one for immovables, in which is included whatever is immovable by destination. It is, argued by counsel for the plaintiff that, article 471, Civil Code, makes a servitude an immovable, and, since the jurisprudence of this state has declared the right to extract oil and gas from the land to be a servitude, the action of lesion will Tie as in cases of immovable property provided for in the second clause of article 1861. The argument assumes that every kind of immovable is brought under or falls within the terms of the article conferring the-action of lesion upon a vendor. But this is not true. While it is true that a servitude established on an immovable estate is declared to be an immovable, it by no means follows that such a servitude as here involved — which is also declared to be a real and an incorporeal right—is to be regarded as an immovable in the sense in which the word immovable is used in article 1861 of the Code.

There are three classes of immovables: Immovables by nature, immovables by destination, ahd immovables by the disposition of the law. When article 1862 of the Code restricted the action of lesion to immovables, it meant immovables which are such by their mature and not such as are made immovable by disposition of the law. This is made manifest by the special inclusion with the immovable by nature all immovables by destination, and the implied exclusion of all immovables made such by the disposition of the law. We hardly think that the language of article 1862 can be so construed as; to extend the action of lesion to every real or incorporeal right and to every character of intangible property made immovable by the disposition of the law.

Article 470 of the Code declares that incorporeal things, consisting only in a right, are not of themselves strictly susceptible of the quality of movables or immovables; nevertheless they are placed in one or the other of these classes, according to the object to which they apply. And article 471 provides that the following are considered as immovables from the object to which they apply:

“A servitude established on an immovable estate.”
But “all things corporeal or incorporeal, which have not the character of immovables by their nature or by the disposition of the law, according to the rules laid down in this title, are considered as movables.” C. C. art. 475.

It thus appears that the servitude referred, to in article 471 as being an immovable is one which is established" on an estate. Its immovable character results from the nature of the object to which it is attached. It becomes a part of the estate and follows the estate. It can hardly be contended that such a servitude, though declared to be an immovable, would be subject to the action of lesion, independent of the estate to which it [814]*814was attached or on which it was established. Even so, with respect to.

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Bluebook (online)
99 So. 607, 155 La. 807, 1924 La. LEXIS 1880, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilkins-v-nelson-la-1924.