Court Opinion

ID: 9775260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:52:06.880404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:23.712533
License: Public Domain

BLEIL, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that it was error to grant summary judgment interpreting the agreement to include leases and to sever the plea for reformation. I disagree on both points and respectfully dissent.
In reversing because of an uncertainty of meaning in the agreement, this Court has not applied well settled law. Whether the parties intended the first option to purchase to apply to a sale or an oil, gas, and mineral lease should not be a factual issue in this case. Even if we assume that an apparent ambiguity exists in the words used in the agreement, our law remains that an oil, gas, and mineral lease is a sale of an interest in land. Avis v. First National Bank of Wichita Falls, 141 Tex. 489, 174 S.W.2d 255 (1943); Short v. W. T. Carter & Brother, 133 Tex. 202, 126 S.W.2d 953 (1938); Sanchez v. Dickinson, 551 S.W.2d 481 (Tex.Civ.App.— San Antonio 1977, no writ); Tide Water Associated Oil Company v. Giles, 277 S.W.2d 291 (Tex.Civ.App.— Austin 1955, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Irons v. Fort Worth Sand & Gravel Co., 260 S.W.2d 629 (Tex.Civ.App.— Fort Worth 1953, writ ref’d n. r. e.). Application of these authorities to the summary judgment proof in this case inescapably compels the conclusion that the parties’ first right of refusal agreement covers the oil, gas, and mineral lease.
The majority further errs in basing a decision on its understanding of what is common knowledge in the area of real estate transactions and in the oil and gas business. It is dangerous precedent for such understanding to be a basis for departure from well established rules of law.
I disagree, too, with the holding that the trial court’s severance of the counterclaim for reformation is error. The stated basis for this holding, that the issues are so interwoven that a severance would occasion unnecessary litigation and a multiplicity of suits, flies in the face of this record.
Initially, I would hold that the severance was within the broad discretion of the trial court. McGuire v. Commercial Union Ins. Co. of N. Y., 431 S.W.2d 347 (Tex.1968); Pierce v. Reynolds, 160 Tex. 198, 329 S.W.2d 76 (1959); Hamilton v. Hamilton, 154 Tex. 511, 280 S.W.2d 588 (1955); Tex.R.Civ.P. 41; 3 McDonald’s, Texas Civil Practice § 10.25 (1970).1 Then, I would look to the facts and circumstances surrounding the severance to determine whether an abuse of discretion occurred.
Usually a severance is a pretrial procedure that tends to cause a multiplicity of litigation. Here the trial court severed as a post summary judgment procedure. The motion to sever was made only after the initial granting of summary judgment and on the basis of expediting appellate review. The severance under these circumstances demonstrates a logical, utilitarian approach *442and appears, perhaps, to be the most efficient and effective manner of disposing of this litigation, with the least expenditure of time, effort and money for all concerned. I see no abuse of discretion.
For these reasons, I dissent and would affirm the trial court’s judgment.

. Even Bohart v. First Nat. Bank in Dallas, 536 S.W.2d 234 (Tex.Civ.App.— Eastland 1976, writ refd n. r. e.), cited by the majority for the proposition that it is imperative that there be no severance, recognizes that this is a discre- - tionary matter.