Opinion ID: 2534600
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Does Filing a Concursus Immunize Cimarex from Damages?

Text: Cimarex argues filing a concursus should immunize it from statutory damages. As explained above, this argument fails because Cimarex failed to file the concursus and deposit funds with the court within the thirty day limit set forth in Mineral Code arts. 212.21-23. Moreover, Cimarex's decision to file the concursus was objectively unreasonable because, as has been made clear in the preceding sections, there was neither a factual nor a legal basis for the Mauboles' claim against Orange River and thus no actual controversy over the funds. We recognize the value of concursus in resolving a dispute involving several bona fide claimants. However, concursus is designed to prevent stakeholders from actual competing claims, not imagined or obviously meritless claims. In Irion v. Standard Oil Co. of Louisiana, 199 La. 363, 6 So.2d 143, 146 (1942), plaintiff obtained a judgment requiring Standard Oil to pay past due mineral royalties. The defendant argued it did not have to satisfy this judgment as other claimants to the money might arise. [6] This Court found no substance whatever in this contention, as the Avoyelles Parish public records reflected Irion's clear and encumbered title to the royalty interest. Id. at 145. Irion is almost directly on point to the present case, as the relevant public records show Orange River is a bona fide purchaser and the sole owner of the royalty interests. This Court also recognized in Irion that a debtor cannot legally resist payment of the debt to his creditor merely because a third person might ultimately be recognized as having an interest in the money due. Id. Standard Oil's right to a concursus would have arisen only if it actually feared competing claims would arise, and the fact that someone else might have an inchoate interest in the royalties did not suffice. Id. at 371, 6 So.2d 143 (emphasis added). [7] Given the strong policy set forth in the public records doctrine and Civil Code article 2035, [8] it cannot be said Cimarex had an actual and reasonable fear that the Mauboles would assert a competing claim. The majority recognizes concursus is inappropriate where the alleged competing claim is outright frivolous. Given the clear and unambiguous language in the interruption of prescription clause and Orange River's status as a bona fide purchaser under Civil Code art. 2035, the competing claim raised by the Mauboles was outright frivolous.