Title: Corbin v. Moser
Citation: 195 Kan. 252, 403 P.2d 800
Docket Number: 44,141
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: July 10, 1965

195 Kan. 252 (1965)
403 P.2d 800
WARREN W. CORBIN and HARRIET B. CORBIN, Appellants,
v.
VEVA MOSER, VIRGIL L. MOSER, EDWARD R. MOSER, EUNICE I. DALTON (also known as MRS. L.A. DALTON), MRS. M.S. WIKOFF (also known as ETHEL WIKOFF), W.H. COUTTS, JR., Guardian of the person and of the Estate of VEVA MOSER, and Incompetent Person, and W.H. COUTTS, III, Administrator of the Estate of Elizabeth Moser, Deceased, and the Unknown Heirs, Executors, Administrators, Devisees, Trustees, Creditors, and Assigns of Charles E. Moser, Deceased, Appellees.
No. 44,141

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed July 10, 1965.
Ervin E. Grant, of El Dorado, argued the cause and was on the briefs for the appellants.
Verne M. Laing, of Wichita, argued the cause, and Lester L. Morris, Ferd E. Evans, Jr., Ralph R. Brock, Joseph W. Kennedy, C. Robert Bell and Robert L. Driscoll, all of Wichita, W.H. Coutts, Jr. and W.H. Coutts, III, both of El Dorado, and Donald L. Allegrucci, of El Dorado, were with him on the briefs for the appellees.
*253 The opinion of the court was delivered by
HATCHER, C.:
This appeal stems from a controversy over the construction of an oil and gas exception or reservation in a deed. The action was in the nature of a suit to quiet title.
There are no disputed facts. In 1926, Charles F. Moser and Lizzie, his wife, executed a deed to Margery Boston covering a quarter section of land:
It will be noted that the reservation in question covers only the west one-half of the quarter section. At the time the reservation was created the land was covered by an oil and gas lease. Following some five conveyances by deed the plaintiffs became the owners of the land. It will be mentioned, for what it is worth, that only two of the five deeds referred to the reservation.
Charles F. Moser died on April 25, 1944, leaving a last will and testament which did not specifically mention any royalty interest in the real estate in question, nor were any royalty interests or other mineral interests inventoried or appraised in the estate. Elizabeth Moser died on the 4th day of March, 1960, without a will, and the inventory listed "a one sixteenth royalty interest of all oil, gas, or minerals in place on the West Half (W 1/2) of the Northwest Quarter (NW 1/4) of Section 26, Township 26 South, Range 4 East...."
The trial court found that the Moser deed reserved a mineral interest in the land and "that through mistake or inadvertence the mineral interest should be one-half rather than the one-sixteenth mentioned...."
The plaintiffs, the present landowners, have appealed.
Before considering the merits of the appeal we must give attention to the appellees' motion to dismiss the appeal because of appellants' alleged failure to comply with K.S.A. 60-2103 (a) and 60-258.
At the risk of unduly extending this opinion, it is necessary to state the procedural facts which brought about the dispute.
On October 16, 1963, the case was tried to the court. Later briefs were filed and on February 10, 1964, the trial court mailed a letter to counsel of record which read, insofar as material here, as follows:
..............
"Costs are to be assessed against Plaintiff."
On March 9, 1964, the trial court addressed another letter to counsel which read:
It appears this letter was mailed only to local counsel.
On July 9, 1964, the journal entry of judgment was filed. The notice of appeal was filed August 4, 1964. The appellees contend that the letter of the court dated February 10, 1964, constituted the judgment of the court and that the appeal was not taken in time.
We must examine the statutes. The time for appeal is governed by the provisions of K.S.A. 60-2103 (a) which, with certain exceptions not material here, reads:
K.S.A. 60-258 (a) provides in part:
K.S.A. 60-258 (b) further provides:
It will be noted that the only instance in which the clerk enters judgment without the direction of the trial judge is on a jury verdict. Otherwise the judge is to direct the clerk as to the judgment to be entered. The judgment cannot be entered until the judge directs, and the judgment is not effective until entered on the appearance docket.
The entry in the appearance docket governs the effective date of all judgments, except judgment by journal entry becomes effective when filed with the clerk but the clerk is directed to docket such judgments immediately.
A simple examination of the appearance docket would have determined this procedural question. The record is silent as to what disposition was made of the February 10, 1964, letter.
We have requested the clerk of this court to contact the clerk of the district court for the purpose of determining what disposition was made of the letter. We are informed that the decision indicated in the letter was never entered on the appearance docket and that the judge never directed the clerk to so enter it. No judgment was entered in the appearance docket until the journal entry was filed July 9, 1964. Until that time there was no judgment from which to appeal. It necessarily results that an appeal filed within thirty days from that date was in time.
The purpose of K.S.A. 60-258 is to fix a time certain when a judgment becomes effective and to fix a place certain where counsel may determine the effective date.
There is no merit in appellees' motion to dismiss the appeal.
We now reach the merits of the appeal and have for determination a single question  what interest is expected or reserved by the language "a one-sixteenth royalty interest of all oil, gas, or minerals in place?"
When one not familiar with the language of the oil and gas industry attempts to convey an interest in oil or gas, ambiguities and confusion usually result and we are left without a guide to the scrivener's intention. We search previous decisions for aid *256 in construction. However, we seldom find the same confusing language twice used and previous cases are of little assistance. This court has on many occasions defined both oil and gas royalties and mineral interests. However, the definitions are of little assistance when the scrivener comingles the words which are used in distinguishing the two interests.
The difference between a mineral interest and a royalty interest is discussed in Hickey v. Dirks, 156 Kan. 326, 133 P.2d 107. We stated:
We have no difficulty in determining the extent of the royalty interest reserved. The landowner's royalty is customarily considered as one-eighth of all of the oil or gas produced. This is commonly styled the landowner's one-eighth royalty. If the landowner conveyed a one-sixteenth of his one-eighth royalty he would have conveyed a one-sixteenth of one-eighth or a one-one-hundred and twenty-eighth of all the oil and gas produced. However, if he had conveyed a "one-sixteenth royalty interest," this would be one-half of the landowner's royalty. Such was done in this case. The distinction between "one-sixteenth royalty interest" and "one-sixteenth of the royalty interest" is the decisive factor. We do have a precedent for this conclusion. In Bellport v. Harrison, 123 Kan. 310, 255 Pac. 52, this court considered an instrument which read:
We stated in the opinion:
*257 Appellants next contend that the trial court erroneously concluded that the language of the reservation created a mineral interest in the oil and gas. We are forced to agree with appellants' contention.
The language "except a one-sixteenth royalty interest of oil and gas" clearly constitutes an exception of a royalty interest and there was an oil and gas lease on the land to support the excepted royalty. However, we cannot see how the addition of the phrase, following a comma, "or minerals in place" could be interpreted as a reservation of a one-half mineral interest.
The trial court's statement "that through mistake and inadvertence the mineral interest should be one-half rather than one-sixteenth mentioned" is rather a violent presumption. There is no substantial evidence supporting any particular presumption.
The language creating the reservation makes no reference to a right to operate or develop, or any right of ingress or egress to and from the premises. These are rights that tend to reflect a mineral interest and are necessary adjuncts to its full enjoyment. In Shepard, Executrix v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., supra, we stated:
Both parties have cited numerous cases for our consideration. This is a situation, however, where comments in judicial opinions on language not identical cannot help us much.
Insofar as we hold that a royalty interest was reserved there is no particular ambiguity in the language used. It is only when we attempt to extend the reservation to cover a mineral interest that the language used becomes inadequate and ambiguous.
Since the parties to the deed are dead and there is no aid outside the instrument for discovering the intention of the parties, we *258 are forced to apply the general rule that where an ambiguity exists so that a deed is capable of two possible constructions the one most favorable to the grantee will be selected. We find the rule stated in 16 Am.Jur., Deeds, § 165, p. 530, as follows:
In Keller v. Ely, 192 Kan. 698, 391 P.2d 132, we stated at page 702 of the opinion:
We are forced to conclude that the language in the deed reserved a royalty interest in the grantor and not a mineral interest.
The judgment is reversed.
APPROVED BY THE COURT.