Court Opinion

ID: 9639744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:46:47.727832+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:05.999643
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
The Ohio Oil Company will be referred to as Ohio and the General Geophysical Company as General.
The geological information obtained by General, acting as confidential contractor of Ohio, belonged to Ohio. In obtaining such information, Ohio did no wrong to Sharp, and was guilty of no inequitable conduct that in anywise affected Sharp. Sharp was then an entire stranger to the oil and gas rights then owned by his present lessors.
It is well settled that a party may have relief as to a transaction in itself untainted, although his title to the subject matter may have originally grown out of his wrongful acts not connected with the particular transaction with respect to which he seeks equitable relief.2
It is, therefore, my opinion that any wrong which Ohio may have done to' the owners of the oil and gas rights at the time the information was obtained is not available to Sharp as a defense to the instant action.
Moreover, I do not think Ohio was guilty of a trespass upon such oil and gas rights. There was no actual entry into the subsurface of the land in which Sharp’s lessors owned the oil and gas rights and there was no injury to such rights. Sharp’s lessors as the owners of such oil and gas rights had no title to the oil and gas in place. They merely owned an incorporeal hereditament or a profit á prendre. Because of the vagrant and fugitive nature of oil and gas, the owner of land has no absolute right or title to the oil or gas which may permeate the strata underlying the surface of his land. He only has a qualified interest therein, namely, the exclusive right to erect structures on the surface of his land, to explore for oil and gas by drilling wells through the underlying strata, and to take therefrom and reduce to possession oil or gas found therein, and thus acquire absolute title thereto as personal property. But neither the landowner nor his lessee obtains title *310to the oil and gas until he reduces it to possession.3
Ohio was conducting a general geological investigation of a substantial area with the consent of all of the owners, except Sharp’s lessors. I do not think that a geological investigation of a substantial area, conducted upon lands rightfully entered, constitutes a trespass upon adjoining land or a wrong against the owner thereof, or of the oil and gas rights therein, where there is no actual entry upon such adjoining land, although it may disclose geological information with respect thereto. To hold otherwise would greatly impede geological investigations which are essential to the discovery and development of oil and gas. Where through rightful entry an investigation is made of a substantial area, the owner of a relatively small tract of land in such area, who has not consented to the investigation, whose land is not entered and who has no title to the oil and gas in place, should not be permitted to assert that he has suffered a wrong from such investigation, although it necessarily disclosed geological information respecting his land, especially where no actual injury or damage results to him from such investigation. The owner of a tract of land who drilled an oil and gas well near his boundary line would obtain geological information respecting adjoining lands but surely he would not be guilty of a trespass upon such lands or a wrong against the owner thereof. He might even drain and recover oil through such well from the adjoining land without incurring any legal liability.
Here, the investigation took place on the highway. It was with the consent of the owner of the surface rights who had a reversionary interest in the highway. Even if actual entry had been made upon the surface of the land in which Sharp’s lessor? owned the oil and gas rights, to which the surface owners had given their consent, there would not, in my opinion, have been a trespass. Where the investigation covers a substantial area, and is not directed at a particular tract of land, I think there is no distinction, if the entry be rightful, whether it is conducted upon the surface of such particular tract or upon adjoining land, and that information obtained with respect to such particular tract is not wrongful, even though the owners of the oil and' gas rights in such tract have not consented to the investigation.
It is suggested that the vibrations caused by the explosions set off by General extended to and entered the subsurface of the lands in which Sharp’s lessors owned the oil and gas rights. But vibrations caused by an explosion on one tract of land which extend to an adjoining tract do not constitute a trespass upon such adjoining tract.4 Moreover, it is difficult for me to see how there can be a trespass upon an incorporeal' hereditament.

 Abslag v. Bock, 139 Wash. 198, 246 P. 300, 302; Hamilton v. Wood, 55 Minn. 482, 57 N.W. 208, 210; Everett v. Wallin, 150 Minn. 148, 184 N.W. 958, 960; Upchurch v. Anderson, Tenn.Ch.App. 52 S.W. 917, 922; Western Union Tel. Co. v. Union Pac. Ry. Co., C.C.Kan., 3 F. 423, 427; Trice v. Comstock, 8 Cir., 121 F. 620, 628, 61 L.R.A. 176.
In Everett v. Wallin, supra [150 Minn. 148, 184 N.W. 960], the court said: “We think it clear that when one who has the legal title to land asks the aid of a court in vindicating his title against an adverse claimant, the latter cannot have him turned out of court because he got title by a fraud practiced upon the former owner, * * *. It may be said in the case at bar, as was observed in Teal v. Scandinavian-American Bank, 114 Minn. 435, 131 N.W. 486, that — ‘Plaintiff’s hands, in so far as concerns defendant, are clean. * * * His (her) hands may, perhaps, be somewhat soiled as to others; but that fact does not inure to the benefit of defendant.’ ”
In Trice v. Comstock, supra [121 F. 628, 61 L.R.A. 176], the court said: “Moreover, if the charges which the defendants make against the complainants were true, they would constitute no defense to this suit. Their alleged offenses were not against the defendants, but against the former owners of this property. These owners have made no complaint and their rights and remedies are not here in question. The only issue here is whether or not the constructive trust which the betrayal of confidence by the agent Comstock has raised shall be enforced. General iniquitous conduct, reprehensible acts toward third parties, do not deprive a suitor of his right to justice in a court of equity. Wrongful conduct in the very act or matter which constitutes the complainant’s ground of action, and that alone, will repel from a court of equity on the ground that ‘he who comes into equity must do so with clean hands.’ This rule does not disqualify any complainant from obtaining relief who has not dealt unjustly in the very transactions concerning which he complains.”

 United States v. Stanolind Crude Oil Purchasing Company, 10 Cir., 113 F.2d 194, 198; Rich v. Doneghey, 71 Okl. 204, 177 P. 86, 89, 3 A.L.R. 352.

 Benner v. Atlantic Dredging Co., 134 N.Y. 156, 31 N.E. 328, 17 L.R.A. 220, 30 Am.St.Rep. 649; Booth v. Rome, W. & O. T. R. Co., 140 N.Y. 267, 35 N.E. 592, 596, 24 L.R.A. 105, 37 Am.St.Rep. 552; New York Steam Co. v. Foundation Company, 123 App.Div. 254, 108 N.Y.S. 84, 90, reversed on other grounds New York Steam Co. v. Foundation Company, 195 N.Y. 43, 87 N.E. 765, 767, 21 L.R.A.,N.S., 470, where the Court of Appeals said: “The defendant cannot be held liable on the theory that it was an ordinary trespasser, for it did not touch, the structure of the plaintiff.”