Court Opinion

ID: 9776903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:48:17.033597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:44.763369
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
STEAKLEY, Justice.
I agree with the affirmance of the reversal and remand judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals. But I am in further agreement with the Court of Civil Appeals in its construction of the surface lease contract. In my opinion the surface lease is not subject to doubt calling for or supportive of the construction reached by the majority here. See Jones v. Gibbs, 133 Tex. 627, 130 S.W.2d 265, 131 S.W.2d 957. Notwithstanding the disfavor with which conditions may be viewed, one was expressly written into the surface lease and should be acknowledged and enforced.
The problem here is somewhat unique in that the surface lease bears direct relationship to the oil and gas lease and was designed to afford greater surface rights than those flowing from the oil and gas lease. It was quite clearly provided, and for obvious reasons, that the surface lease would concur with the oil and gas lease only so long as the surface lessee desired to and did comply with the stated condition under which, and only under which, the surface lease could be maintained “in full force and effect,” namely, by the payment of the “full consideration for which this lease for the ensuing year * * * on or before January 1st of each succeeding year. * * *” This was not done on or before January 1, 1963, whereupon the surface lease terminated under its own terms. It is something else, and beside the point to the foregoing, that the surface lessee was also expressly *790granted the right to terminate the surface lease before the termination of the oil and gas lease should he elect to do so.
CALVERT, C. J., and POPE, J., join in this opinion.