Court Opinion

ID: 9827183
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:15:54.680047+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:25.811326
License: Public Domain

On Appellants’ Motion for Rehearing. ■
Holcomb’s motion for rehearing devotes five pages to the contention that we were in error in holding the Knox ,24a. tract a voluntary subdivision of the 7-a. tract by reason of the following asserted facts substantially stated: the 7 acres, the Atlantic and • Gulf tracts, and some others were all parts of a tract of at least 269 acres in which Mrs. Knox was asserting a ½⅜ undivided interest, or 11⅝4 acres, and she had brought separate suits against each of the leaseholders of the other tracts. After the Holcomb-Knox partition of the 7 acres by which a .24a. tract was set aside to Mrs. Knox on the western end of the 7 acres, and the refusal of the Commission to grant a permit to drill thereon, the .24a. tract was by agreement between Holcomb and Mrs. Knox shifted to the center of the 7 acres, the agreement containing the provision quoted in our original opinion. It is asserted that the Atlantic and Gulf acquiesced in this agreement and upon its faith Mrs. Knox dismissed her other suits, thereby relinquishing her asserted claim to interest in the balance of the 269 acres. It is not contended that Atlantic or Gulf admitted Mrs. Knox’s title to any portion of their leases, but it is asserted that they “recognized the merit of Mrs. Knox’s contention that she owned a 1/24 undivided interest in the whole 269-acre tract because of the concessions they made in agreeing to withdraw any protest to granting of a well on the divided .24 of an acre tract.”
The issue of Mrs. Knox’s title to an interest in the Atlantic and Gulf leases is not and could not be adjudicated in this suit, even were Mrs. Knox a party to it, which is not the case. She might have joined all the lessees of the 269 acres in a single suit and had her interest (if established) set aside in severalty in a single tract. She chose to file separate suits against the several lessees. She established (manifestly by agreement with Holcomb) her interest in the 7 acres, and had it partitioned to her in kind. This was a voluntary subdivision, under all the authorities, irrespective of the fact that the partition was an agreed one. The fact that she agreed to dismiss her suits against Atlantic and Gulf upon their withdrawal of protests to one well on the ,24a. tract has no bearing whatever upon the voluntary subdivision issue or upon the merits of Holcomb’s claims to the two permits here in issue. His rights, as stated in our original opinion, extend solely to protection of his vested interest in the entire 7-acre tract considered as a unit for development purposes.
The motion is overruled.
Motion overruled.