Court Opinion

ID: 9779002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:32:00.749824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:19.168976
License: Public Domain

DIXON, Chief Justice.
I respectfully dissent.
To determine the nature of appellant’s cause of action we must look to his petition. Piazza v. Phillips, Tex.Sup., 264 S.W.2d 428. And we must look to his whole petition, not merely to the prayer. Starr v. Ferguson, 140 Tex. 80, 166 S.W.2d 130 (Comm.App. opinion adopted). The petition is long, so I shall not copy all of it here, but shall quote and refer to parts of it that seem to me to be especially significant.
Par. VI: “On June 26, 1950, the plaintiffs G. A. Gamble and E. L. Lancaster were the owners of an undivided one-eighth interest in the oil, gas, and other minerals in the North 320 acres of the A. B. Davis Survey deraigning their title from and under the patent issued to A. B. Davis (Emphasis supplied); and, on the date just stated, they joined in the execution of an oil, gas and mineral lease to Geo. H. Gay, Trustee, * * *.
“The defendant Renwar Oil Corporation took an assignment of this lease from Geo. H. Gay and had drilled three producing wells on the North 320 acres of the A. B. Davis Survey * * * - which obligates it to pay to the lessors one-eighth royalty on oil and on other liquid hydrocarbons, and also on gas produced from said land.
“The plaintiffs submit that the defendant, Renwar Oil Corporation * * * has become estopped to deny the title of the plaintiffs to one-eighth of the minerals and to one-eighth of the one-eighth royalty on oil, gas and other minerals produced from said land while operating under this lease and they submit that they are entitled to an adjudication by the court to this effect" (Emphasis supplied.)
Par. IX: “It appears, also, that Renwar Oil Corporation owns the leases from the mineral owners claiming under A. B. Davis on the North 320 acres of that survey and also it had entered into a working agreement with Arkansas Fuel Company for development under its alleged lease from the state purporting to cover 170 acres of the A. B. Davis Survey alleged to be in conflict with the Davis Survey and to be submerged land below the highwater mark of the bay. * * * The record shows * * * that Tract 462 has never been surveyed and appears to be in conflict with the Davis Survey. * * * The plaintiffs do object to the payment of this one-eighth royalty to Bascom Giles, Commissioner of the General Land Office, as a royalty interest as it has attempted to do in a proposed division order. * * *.’’ (Emphasis supplied.)
Prayer: “Firstv Judgment that they are entitled to receive from the defendcmt as royalty Yeith of the value of the oil, gas and gas distillate produced and marketed by defendant from any wells already drilled or that may hereafter be drilled on the North 320 acres of the A. B. Davis Survey without diminution or reduction on account of the ⅛⅛ royalty promised to the State mtder the lease to Arkansas Fuel Oil Company or on account of the several tmitization agreements made by defendant with the State School Land Board. * * (Emphasis supplied.)
Appellant’s prayer must be considered in connection with paragraph VII wherein he alleges that the unitization agreements entered into by appellee are null and void and “the judgment of the court to that effect is requested.” (Emphasis supplied.)
*294Paragraphs IX and III of appellant’s petition must also be considered together. In the former paragraph appellant refers to a lease alleged to he in conflict with his lease and purporting to cover 170 acres which are now submerged by water. In the latter appellant says that the entire A. B. Davis Survey was on dry land when surveyed, and that “plaintiffs submit that they are entitled to a finding to that effect (Emphasis supplied.) The point is important, for title to land may be gained or lost by erosion, Manry v. Robison, 122 Tex. 213, 56 S.W.2d 438, and appellant apparently wants the court to decree that he has not so lost title to the 170 acres involved in the conflict to the Arkansas Fuel Company and Bascom Giles, Commissioner of the General Land Office.
From a study of appellant’s petition as a whole, and the above allegations in particular, I have reached the conclusion that appellant’s cause of action seeks either (1) to recover title to an interest in land or (2) to quiet title to an interest in land. In either event the suit comes within the provisions of Art. 1995, subdv. 14, V.A.C.S.
I make no comment as to whether all the necessary parties are before the court for an adjudication of title, for we are only concerned now with the true nature of appellant’s suit regardless of its designation as a suit for declaratory judgment. The question of necessary parties is not before us.
Appellant’s suit seems to me to be in substance if not in form an action to recover an interest in land. Our Supreme Court, speaking through Judge Smedley, has said: “ * * * it is settled * * * that royalties, whether payable in money or in kind * * * ‘are interests in land’ ”. Tennant v. Dunn, 130 Tex. 285, 110 S.W.2d 53, at page 57; Young v. Rudd, Tex.Civ.App., 226 S.W.2d 469, at page 473, ref. n. r. e.
If I am mistaken in concluding that appellant’s action is one to recover an interest in land, I nevertheless cannot consider it as anything less than a suit to quiet title. In speaking of a suit to quiet title our Supreme Court long ago said, “The object of the suit is not to divest the defendants of rights. It is for the purpose of quieting the plaintiff’s title, and presupposes its validity, but that he is disquieted and his title disturbed by the alleged unconscientious claims and pretensions of the defendants. His purpose is to have those claims judicially declared to be unfounded.” The Howards v. Davis, 6 Tex. 174, at page 184.
One of our Courts of Civil Appeals has said: “Under the record and the authorities cited, it is our opinion that where appellants’ adverse claim causes the title to appellees’ land to be disturbed or threatened, the court of Lubbock County where the land in question is located has venue, in any event, to hear, at least, appellees’ suit to remove cloud or to quiet title to the said land.” Texan Development Co. v. Hodges, 237 S.W.2d 436, at page 440,
Appellants say they want an adjudication by the court that appellee is estopped to deny their title to one-eighth of the minerals. For purposes of venue in this case if there is any difference between an action to “adjudicate title” and an action to “quiet title” the difference is so slight as to be immaterial — it seems to me to be nothing more than a play on words.
The holding in the case of Goodrich v. Superior Oil Co., 150 Tex. 159, 237 S.W.2d 969, does not seem to me to support the majority decision in this case. On page 972 of 237 S.W.2d in the opinion in the cited case it is said, “Doubtless under some circumstances venue of an interpleader suit of a producer over disputed royalties or other sums due from oil production is maintainable under the terms of subdivision 14." Though the case now before this Court is not an interpleader suit, it is similar to one. Here we have a dispute over royalties and sums due from oil production on 170 acres. Appellants base their claim to the disputed royalties on their alleged rights under the Geo. Gay lease. The State of Texas, according to appellants’ petition, bases its claim on its alleged rights under the Arkansas Fuel Company lease. And appellee, the producer, has in effect repudiated appellants’ royalty claims and recognized those of the State, for appellee has entered into *295unitization agreements and announces a proposed division order — acts which are hostile to appellants’ claims.
Justice Garwood, after struggling with the uncertainties and indefinite allegations in the petition in the Goodrich case, was unable to find any basis for a dispute as to royalties between appellant and appellee, or between appellant and any other defendant. At one point the petition asserted that a dispute existed between certain defendants, 'but it omitted to identify the defendants, or to show that the dispute in any way affected the title of either appellant or appellee. Under such circumstances the Supreme Court answered “No” to the certified question as to whether the allegations showed venue as against the defendant Goodrich in the county where the land lay.
Apparently the petition in the Goodrich case, supra, went no further than to suggest the possibility of a dispute which might cloud appellee’s title, or give rise to a “doubtful situation” between appellant and appellee, for on page 973 of 237 S.W.2d, Justice Garwood in his opinion says: “It is suggested that, since the meagre allegations of the ‘unless and except’ clause should be deemed to have some purpose, they should be taken as declaring a suit by appellee against appellant to clear its title to the leasehold estate of a doubtful situation between appellant and appellee as to the amount of appellant’s overriding royalties, which might be brought to light by some claim to be made by a defendant, that (contrary to the categorical allegations of the petition) there is a failure of title on the part of the lessors, with corresponding reduction of appellant’s interest. Such a suit is evidently envisioned as one in the alternative, in view of the positive allegations of the petition that there has been no failure of title, from which the doubtful situation between appellant and appellee might arise. Obviously it is not spelled out in anything like the customary form, and the absence of an appropriate prayer for alternative relief is conspicuous. The statement of a mere possibility of such a doubtful situation, or even of the possibility of a claim of appellant against appellee for excessive royalties, is not an allegation of cloud or threatened cloud upon the title of appellee.” (Emphasis supplied.)
In the case at bar we are not concerned with the mere possibility of a dispute between appellants and appellee. We are confronted with an actual dispute. Appellants in substance allege that appellee took an assignment of a lease from Geo. Gay covering 320 acres out of the A. B. Davis Survey, under which appellants are entitled to a ⅜4& royalty; that appellee then entered into a working agreement with the Arkansas Fuel Company for development under a rival and conflicting lease purporting to cover 170 acres of the 320 acres covered by the Gay lease, under the terms of which conflicting lease the State of Texas has been promised a ⅜⅛ royalty in derogation and diminution of appellants’ claimed royalty interest; and that appellee has entered into certain unitization agreements with the State School Land Board, which agreements are antagonistic to appellants’ alleged royalty interests.
The relief appellants ask is that the court find that the 170 acres in dispute (now submerged by water) were dry lands when the A. B. Davis Survey was made; and that the court hold as a matter of law that (1) appellee is estopped to deny appellants’ title to ⅛⅛ of the minerals; (2) the unit-ization agreements between appellee and the State School Land Board are null and void; and (3) appellants are entitled to be paid ⅝4⅛ of the value of the oil, gas, and gas distillate from wells already drilled and that may be drilled in the future on the 320 acre A. B. Davis Survey lease (including the 170 acres covered by the conflicting lease) without diminution or reduction on account of the ⅛⅛ royalty promised to the State under the lease to the Arkansas Fuel Company or on account of the several unitization agreements made by appellee with the State School Land Board.
Appellants’ first point of error asserts that this suit was brought “seeking merely a declaratory judgment construing an oil and gas lease executed by them on land *296situated in Nueces County * * But I think the suit goes much further. It seeks either to adjudicate title in appellants’ favor, or at least to quiet their title in view of the State’s claim and the unitization agreements entered into between appellee and the State School Land Board.
In my opinion the motion for rehearing should be sustained and the-judgment of the trial court affirmed.