Case Title: Delta Refining Co. v. Bankhead

Citation: 225 La. 422, 73 So. 2d 302

Docket Number: 

State: louisiana

Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Date: 1954-04-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
73 So. 2d 302 (1954) 225 La. 422 DELTA REFINING CO. v. BANKHEAD et al. No. 41332. Supreme Court of Louisiana. April 26, 1954. Rehearing Denied May 31, 1954. *303 Cobb & Wright, New Orleans, Dale, Richardson & Dale, Baton Rouge, Blanchard, Goldstein, Walker & O'Quin, Shreveport, for appellants. Ashton L. Stewart, Clint L. Pierson, Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson, Baton Rouge, Rosen, Kammer, Wolff, Hopkins & Burke, New Orleans, for appellees. MOISE, Justice. This is a concursus proceeding in which the Delta Refining Company deposited certain sums of money in the Registry of the Nineteenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, which sums represented the value of oil, less severance taxes, produced from a well known as A. J. Bankhead et al., Bank of Baton Rouge in Liquidation Well No. Two Unit, which well is located in the University Field of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. The trial judge passed on many disputed claims, and from his judgment there are only two appeals. The first is by Mrs. Lillian B. Haase, individually and as tutrix of Charles Wendell Haase, Southern Production Company, Inc., William G. Helis, Jr., Testamentary Executor of the Succession of William G. Helis, deceased, and Maryland Casualty Company, from his judgment rejecting the claim of Mrs. Lillian B. Haase, individually and as natural tutrix of the minor, Charles Wendell Haase, to the ownership of the undivided one-half interest in and to the minerals under certain described property and the claim of Southern Production Company, Inc. and the Estate of William G. Helis to an oil, gas and mineral lease on the undivided one-half interest. Appeal Number Two is taken by the Bank of Baton Rouge in Liquidation from *304 that part of the judgment awarding Robert Louis Kohlmann and William Kohlmann a 1/384th royalty interest of all the oil, gas and other minerals produced. The land involved is a part of Ben Hur Plantation located south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is now an oil producing area known as the University Field. A chronological listing of title to the land involved in the present appeals is pertinent. On May 10, 1919, A. Adler Realty Company owned the Ben Hur Plantation which it sold to John P. and William H. Burgin, reserving to the vendor one-half of the minerals. On December 20, 1920, William H. Burgin sold his interest to John P. Burgin. On March 28, 1923, John P. Burgin conveyed the property to the Bank of Baton Rouge, subject to the reservation of one-half of the minerals made by A. Adler Realty Company in 1919. On December 27, 1924, the Bank of Baton Rouge conveyed the property to the Louisiana Investment Company. On December 28, 1925, the Louisiana Investment Company conveyed the property back to the Bank of Baton Rouge. By 1927, A. Adler Realty Company and the Bank of Baton Rouge had both entered into separate leases with Roxana Petroleum Corporation, and on July 28, 1927, they entered into the following understanding: We shall now discuss the effect of the above understanding. The reservation made by A. Adler Realty Company in the sale of Ben Hur Plantation to the Burgin brothers on May 10, 1919, if nothing were done which would prevent the prescription of that servitude, would prescribe on May 10, 1929; after that date, the Bank of Baton Rouge in Liquidation or the Louisiana Investment Company, being the owner of the surface land, would have become the sole owner of the minerals. On July 28, 1927, the date of the above understanding, the Bank of Baton Rouge in Liquidation and the A. Adler Realty Company were each the owners of one-half of the minerals (because Adler's reservation of minerals expired on May 10, 1929). This 1927 document should be accepted as proof of what it contains, and words must be given their normal meaning. It did no more than set forth, for the benefit of the mineral lessees, the ownership of the lessors at that time in the minerals. The current of prescription running had not completed its span, as shown, supra. The bare acknowledgment by a landowner of the existence of a mineral servitude in his lands does not interfere with the running of prescription. To have that effect the acknowledgment must be coupled with a purpose and intention, and such must be expressed in clear and unmistakable terms. In the case of Bremer v. North Central Texas Oil Co., 185 La. 917, 171 So. 75, 77, plaintiff granted a mineral servitude on June 30, 1924. On November 28, 1925, a three year oil and gas lease was executed. The contention was made that the lease *305 interrupted the running of prescription. This Court held that there was no interruption and stated: The Court, in the Bremer case, supra, distinguished it from the case of Mulhern v. Hayne, 171 La. 1003, 132 So. 659, and stated: In the case of Achee v. Caillouet, 197 La. 313, 1 So. 2d 530, 536, this Court stated: In the case of Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co. v. Thompson, 222 La. 868, 64 So. 2d 202, 210, we made the following pertinent statement: The trial judge made the following statement with respect to the 1927 agreement, which speaks for itself: "The stipulation of July 28, 1927 is very brief, and there is not the slightest suggestion in it that the parties intended to extend longer life to the Adler Company reservation made on May 10, 1919. It is nothing more than a division *306 order to insure the proper payment of royalties in event of production by the lessee. I, therefore, hold that the mineral reservation and all rights to mineral interest of the A. Adler Company expired by the liberative prescription on May 10, 1929. Achee v. Caillouet, 197 La. 313, 1 So. 2d 530; Goree v. Sanders, 203 La. 859, 14 So. 2d 744; Mrs. Daggett's Louisiana Mineral Rights, page 78." It is well settled by our jurisprudence that a mineral servitude, having once become extinct by prescription, is a dead thing. It cannot be resurrected, and it can only be recreated by a new servitude. Haynes v. King, 219 La. 160, 52 So. 2d 531. We hold it elementary that an extinguished servitude can only be resurrected by title. LSA-Civil Code, Articles 783, subd. 2, 789, 3546. Reverting to our chronological listing: On December 29, 1928, the Bank of Baton Rouge again transferred the property to the Louisiana Investment Company, and on February 23, 1937, the Louisiana Investment Company reconveyed the properties back to the Bank of Baton Rouge, including in this reconveyance all servitudes and rights of every kind and nature owned by the Investment Company. On February 3, 1939, A. Adler Realty Company executed a quitclaim in favor of the Bank of Baton Rouge in Liquidation. On July 31, 1933 the Louisiana Investment Company and A. Adler Realty Company entered into an agreement, which reads as follows: "1. The Investment Company hereby recognizes the rights on the part of *307 the Realty Company to an undivided one-half interest to the oil, gas or minerals in, on and under the said Ben Hur Plantation until July 28th, 1937. On January 12, 1934, the Louisiana Investment Company sold to James O. Haase, now deceased and survived by his wife, Mrs. Lillian B. Haase, and his minor child, Charles Wendell Haase, appellants, 30 acres of Ben Hur Plantation. The act of sale reserved all oil, gas and mineral rights in and to the property to the vendor. It is the contention of the Haase appellants that the agreement which was entered into between the Louisiana Investment Company and A. Adler Realty Company *308 in the month of July, 1933, was an act of compromise, whereby, the A. Adler Realty Company was recognized as the owner of an undivided one-half interest in and to the minerals underlying Ben Hur Plantation until July 28, 1937, and when this one-half interest in the minerals terminated on July 28, 1937, the same inured to J. O. Haase, the then owner of the 30 acre tract. There is no merit in this argument, because at the time the 1933 agreement was entered into A. Adler Realty Company's mineral servitude had been prescribed for nearly five years. The parties could not have intended to create a new servitude, because that could only have been done by titlewhich is not so here. The agreement was only dealing with a division of royalties. It did not renounce an accrued prescription or resurrect from the dead the servitude which expired in 1929. When the Louisiana Investment Company, Inc., in its sale of 30 acres to J. O. Haase, reserved all of the oil, gas and mineral rights, such reservation was effective as to the whole of the servitude. In 1937, there was nothing to revert to Haase. Union Sulphur Co. v. Lognion, 212 La. 632, 33 So. 2d 178. The trial judge held that the mineral interests of the A. Adler Realty Company had been dead for over four years in 1933 and that the agreement was not a compromise, because it acknowledged in the A. Adler Realty Company everything the A. Adler Realty Company claimed to own. He also stressed the fact that there was no consideration. We adopt the following finding of the trial judge with respect to the 1933 agreement: Since we have determined that the agreement of 1927 did not interrupt prescription, it follows that the agreement of 1933 could not, as said by the trial judge, revive something that was dead. "The courts have on occasions referred to an extinguished servitude as being a dead thing or, in other words, no longer in existence. * * * This Court has also pointed out that a servitude can only be established by acts such as are used in the transfer of title to immovable property. LSA-Civil *309 Code, Articles 743, 766, 770; Long-Bell Petroleum Co. v. Tritico, on rehearing, 216 La. 426, 43 So. 2d 782. Since the servitude in this case has become extinct, it cannot be re-created or established anew except by titles * * *" Wise v. Watkins, 222 La. 493, 62 So. 2d 653, 656. (Italics ours.) We do not think that the agreement of 1933, by reserving to the Realty Company the right to judicially assert any claim it might have, was an admission of ownership in the Adler Realty Company. One might always assert a claim, and it is for the courts to determine whether there is a cause of action. By the quitclaim deed of 1939, A. Adler Realty Company decided not to engage in further litigation. The record reflects drilling by lessees of Bank in 1939 and 1940. On March 12, 1949, a producing well, known as A. J. Bankhead et al., Bank of Baton Rouge in Liquidation, Well No. 2, was brought in on the Haase 30 acre tract. Therefore, at no time has there been a lapse of ten years after the Haase purchase. On the question of estoppel, the trial judge made the following pronouncement: James O. Haase is the deceased husband of Mrs. Lillian B. Haase, and father of the minor. He was the head and master of the community. Our learned brother below found that Haase, in executing at least *310 six leases and pooling agreements, recognized and acknowledged that the Bank of Baton Rouge and its assigns owned the whole of the minerals in this 30 acres, and the Bank is the party which made the lease to Bankhead, relying on the acknowledgment of Haase, and that lease brought in that well. We are not disposed to give to his widow a letter of credit to repudiate the acknowledgment of her husband solemnly made by authentic act. We agree with the findings of the District Court. We shall now discuss the Kohlmann claim. On April 13, 1937, A. Adler Realty Company, three months before its rights under the 1933 agreement would expire, sold to Leon L. Kohlmann an undivided 1/16th interest in and to all of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under, or that may be produced from a certain portion of Ben Hur Plantation. Leon L. Kohlmann and his wife, Janice Kahn, then donated this interest to their minor children, Robert Louis and William Kohlmann, on the same day, April 13, 1937. The donation was accepted by Leon L. Kohlmann for and on behalf of the two minor children. On February 6, 1939, Leon Kohlmann quitclaimed to the Bank of Baton Rouge the above recited interest and accepted in return for his minor children an undivided one-forty-eighth (1/48th) of the royalty, that is, one-forty-eighth (1/48th) of the usual base royalty of one-eighth (1/8th), or one-three hundred eighty-fourth (1/384th) part of all the oil, gas, or other minerals of whatever kind that may be produced from certain described portions of Ben Hur Plantation. The Bank of Baton Rouge plead prescription against the claim of the Kohlmann boys. The trial judge overruled the plea and ruled that the royalty interest would be enforced. The Bank of Baton Rouge argues that the sole question presented by the plea of prescription is whether under the compromise the title to the royalty vested in the minors, or vested in the father. It contends that the above donation was a simulation, and that title was really in the father and his interest has prescribed. If title vested in the minors, prescription has not accrued. At the time the Bank of Baton Rouge entered into the compromise with the Kohlmann boys, through their father, it had disposed of parts of Ben Hur Plantation. The interest of the Kohlmann boys was a threat of pending litigation. In order to avoid future litigation and clear certain titles, it entered into the compromise agreement. Article 3071 of the Revised Civil Code recites: Article 3078 further states: We think that the Bank of Baton Rouge is bound by the agreement into which it entered with the Kohlmann boys, through their father, and since prescription has not accrued so far as the minors are concerned, they are entitled to their royalty interests. On a claim of simulation, probability, conjecture or suspicion is not sufficient to glorify a litigant with a judgment, but it must be by proof with a reasonable certainty. For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the trial court rejecting the claim of Mrs. Lillian B. Haase, individually and as tutrix of Charles Wendell Haase, Southern Production *311 Company, Inc., William G. Helis, Jr., Testamentary Executor of the Succession of William G. Helis, and Maryland Casualty Company is affirmed; and the judgment awarding Robert Louis Kohlmann and William Kohlmann a 1/384th royalty of all the oil, gas and other minerals produced or saved from certain described lands is, likewise, affirmed. HAMITER, J., dissents as to mineral interest claimed by Mrs. Haase, otherwise he concurs.