Woodward v. Prairie Oil & Gas Co.

1925 OK 1000, 243 P. 940, 116 Okla. 166, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 367
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 8, 1925
Docket15720
StatusPublished

This text of 1925 OK 1000 (Woodward v. Prairie Oil & Gas Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Woodward v. Prairie Oil & Gas Co., 1925 OK 1000, 243 P. 940, 116 Okla. 166, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 367 (Okla. 1925).

Opinion

Opinion by

JARMAN, C.

On January 24, 1906, Peggy Woodward, a Creek freedwoman, executed to H*“y Lee Taft, trustee, a deed of trust, with power of sale, to 90 acres of land, to secure certain indebtedness, and, during 1907, she executed an oil and . gas lease on said land to Drury H. Middleton, and, in July, 1908, Middleton assigned said lease to the Prairie Oil & Gas Company. On March 5, 1913, the trustee sold the land, under the terms and provisions of the deed of trust, at public auction, to John J. Bo-gard, Jr., to satisfy indebtedness, which had matured. The trustee’s deed was executed and delivered to the purchaser and was filed for record on March 13, 1913, and the purchaser, Bogard, notified the Prairie Oil & Gas Company that its rights under the Middleton lease were extinguished by the trustee’s sale. On May 29, 1913, Bogard executed an oil and gas lease to the Prairie Oil & Gas Company on ten acres of the *167 90 acres covered by tbe Middleton lease, and on June 10, 1913, tbe Prairie Oil & das Company released tbe remaining 80 acres to Bogard. On October 15, 1913, Bogard conveyed said 90 acres by warranty deed to W. E. Earley. On July 9, 1920, Peggy Woodward, acting through John P. Shelburn, entered into a contract with J. J. Bruce, an attorney, who took the contract in the name of J. J. Bruce and L. H. Brewer, composing the firm of Bruce & Brewer, attorneys, in which it was agreed that said attorneys were to receive 50 per cent, of all recovery, including lands, oil and gas royalties, etc., for their services in conducting a suit to quiet title, in Peggy Woodward, to the 90 acres of land in question. On July 9, 1920, the same day the contract of employment was made, J. J. Bruce filed a petition to quiet title to said land, and, thereafter, two amended petitions were filed by Bruce, and by this time the land in question was about to be sold at a foreclosure sale by the sheriff to satisfy a mortgage held by W. H. Ludwig, and, in order to save the lana from being thus sold, and becoming lost to the parties concerned, Peggy Woodward negotiated a loan with E. L. Graves for the purpose of paying off said mortgage, and, on November 10, 1920, Graves agreed to furnish the necessary funds to Peggy Woodward, provided she would employ William Neff, an attorney at law, to handle the suit brought by her to quiet title to said land, which was agreed to by her, and, on that date, she entered into a written contract with Neff whereby- she agreed to pay him for his services, in connection with said litigation, an amount equal to one-fourth of all lands and money collected or realized by such litigation. This arrangement was satisfactory with, and consented to by, Bruce, and on the same date, November 10, 1920, the said J. J. Bruce and John P. Shelburn entered into a written contract with Peggy Woodward whereby they were to be paid an amount equal to one-fourth of all lands and monies collected by virtue of said litigation. This latter contract, in which Bruce was interested, was filed for record on November 27, 1920. Prior to the making of this second contract, Peggy Woodward executed to Bruce and Brewer, on September 30,1920, a warranty deed for an undivided one-half interest in said land, but said deed was not filed for record until March 10, 1921. After William Neff was employed as an attorney in the case, he prepared a third amended pe - tition in the action to quiet title, and associated Bruce & Brewer with him as attorneys for Peggy Woodward, the plaintiff, which was in keeping with the contracts of employment made by said attorneys with, the plaintiff on November 10, 1920. E. L. Graves furnished the funds necessary to take care of the Ludwig mortgage and other indebtedness against the land, and, on December 27, 1920, Graves negotiated with Ludwig and procured a quitclaim deed from him to Peggy AAroodward to said land, which was delivered to Mr. Neff and was by him filed for record. Thereafter, and on October 30, 1922, another action, No. 11684, was filed by Peggy AAroodward, through a different set of attorneys, in the district court if Muskogee county, for the purpose of canceling and setting aside the contracts for attc eney’s fees held by Mr. Neff and by Bruce and Brewer, and for the cancellation of tbe oil and gas lease held by the Prairie Oil & Gas Company and its assignees, and to quiet Itle to said land. To this petition, Bruce and Brewer filed their separate answer and cross-petition, setting up their first contrict of employment, and alleged that by virtue of said contract they were entitled to a decree for one-half of the land in question, which had been reconveyed to the plaintiff, William Neff also filed his separate answer and cross-petition, in which he sought judgment for one-fourth of said land, in keeping with his contract of employment made and entered into with the plaintiff on November 10, 1920. Said case No. 11684 was consolidated with the first action, No. 7544, and, upon a hearing being had, the trial court rendered a decree in which the court found and adjudged that the first contract of employment held by Bruce and Brewer was superseded bv the second contract under date of November 10, 1920, which made the same provisions with respect to the amount of attorneys’ fees to be paid as the contract made with Mr. Neff, and the court rendered judgment in favor of Bruce and Brewer for an undivided One-fourth interest in and to said land, subject to the life estate of the plaintiff therein, and from this judgment Bruce and Brewer have appealed. Judgment was also rendered in favor of the Prairie Oil & Gas Company et al., defendants, holding that their leases were valid and subsisting, and from this portion of the judgment the plaintiff, Peggy Woodward, has appealed.

It is sufficient to say in order to dispose of the contentions of Bruce and Brewer that the evidence fully sustains the findings of the trial court that the former contract of employment, entered into by them with the plaintiff, was supplanted and superseded by the subsequent contract made and entered into on November 10, 1921, whereby the amount of attorney’s fee was fixed at one- *168 fourth (.f all lands and moneys recovered by said action. The actions of Bruce and Brewer indicated that they did not rely upon their first contract. After the second contract was made, they forthwith placed it of record, but neither the first contract nor the deed they took from the plaintiff! to an undivided one-half interest in the land in question was placed of record until March 10, 1921, long after the second contract had been placed of record; and, besides, on March 4, 1921, J. J. Bruce wrote a letter to E. L. Graves in which he recited that the issues between the plaintiff and Parley had been adjudged out of court upon the consideration that Parley should reconvey by quitclaim deed the land to the plaintiff, and complained about Mr. Neff not placing the quitclaim deed on record, and in this connection stated:

“I am writing you this letter for the purpose of asking that you take this matter up with Mr. Neff and have the quitclaim deed .from IV. E. Parley to Peggy ’Woodward, covering the. lands in question, filed for record and let us get the conveyances from Peggy Woodward to Mr. Neff and I, for our quarter interest each, filed.’’

This shows clearly that Bruce and Brewer were relying upon the second contract, and they were not entitled to recover under the first one.

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Buckley v. Morton
1923 OK 808 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1923)
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166 S.W. 965 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1914)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1925 OK 1000, 243 P. 940, 116 Okla. 166, 1925 Okla. LEXIS 367, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/woodward-v-prairie-oil-gas-co-okla-1925.