Court Opinion

ID: 7821831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:57:14.08194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:45.430776
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I do not understand where the chancellor erred. The evidence in this case was submitted to the trial court by stipulation, but even so we are to view that evidence in the light most favorable to the appellee. And we are to resolve all reasonable inferences derived from such evidence in favor of the appellee, affirming the trial court even where he mistakenly applies the law, if the result is correct. This is an unusual case. The facts were fully stipulated and the issues of law, if there are any, are not identified anywhere — either in the appellants’ brief, who cite nothing throughout their brief on the only significant point raised on appeal; or in the appellee’s brief; or even in the majority opinion. If the chancellor is to be reversed the error ought to be pointed out. I find no error, simply a difference of opinion as to the inferences to be drawn from the evidence. In the premises of this case I think the trial judge is in a better position to reach the right result. Peter Doss died intestate many years ago owning 200 acres in Columbia County, including all the mineral interests except a small interest not here involved. His nine heirs attempted a partition by means of a plat dividing the land into nine parts. One 22 acre tract, No. 7, was allotted or descended to Mamie [Doss] Mangrum and is the subject of this suit. In 1964, her heirs, Robert Mangrum and Maudell Mangrum Edwards deeded 22 acres, Lot 7, by a metes and bounds description to J. F. Baker and Wanda Baker, reserving to the grantors %ths of the minerals and conveying 14th, or 5.5 mineral acres, to the grantees. In 1968 the Bakers deeded the same 22 acres to Lamar McEachern, with this reservation: The grantors except all the oil, gas and other minerals as such have been reserved by former grantors. By mesne transactions, Franks Petroleum acquired mineral leases covering the entire 200 acres — from the Mangrum heirs in 1970 and from the Bakers in 1972. In 1973 Lamar McEachern deeded the 22 acres to appellants. The deed contained a reservation excepting from the grant all oil, gas and other minerals “heretofore constructively severed from the above described land.” In 1975 Franks Petroleum brought in two producing wells on the 200 acres and filed an interpleader suit to determine the ownership of more than @109,000.00 in oil royalties, naming some 70 heirs of Peter Doss and approximately 100 presumed distributees. The lengthy and complex decree, which undisputably was entered by consent contained two recitations on which the appellants have constructed their claim of entitlement to %ths of the mineral interest attributable to 5.5 acres and claims to other mineral and royalty interests in the 200 acres. The decree recites that “by stipulation between the parties” the Baker to McEachern deed effectually conveyed 14th mineral interest to McEachern to the entire 200 acres and, more, that the deed from McEachern to the appellants “effectually conveyed all mineral interest in and to the 200 acres” acquired by McEachern from the Bakers. Thus, on these stipulations, appellants contend that when Franks Petroleum acquired the mineral leases from the Mangrums in 1970 and from the Bakers in 1972 (some 5 or 6 years before the decree) they, the appellants, had an outstanding mineral interest for which Franks Petroleum should now pay them. But this argument, if it has no other flaws, is dependent on giving retroactive effect to stipulations of a consent decree which could not possibly have been intended by such stipulations. At least there is nothing in this record to indicate either that the court was actually making those findings or that the parties were actually intending to agree to those findings as a matter of compromise. It may be that they did, but the court found otherwise and I believe that it was in a far better position than we are to construe what occurred from this very abbreviated record. In my view what appellants ask us to hold was neither intended by the stipulation in the inter-pleader suit nor was it the result of a judicial determination by the trial judge. In the absence of proof one way or the other I believe the better course is to rely on the holding of the chancellor. The majority point out that the chancellor’s view would mean that appellants compromised their dispute with the Bakers over the reservation in the Baker-McEachern deed by giving up their entire interest, which I concede to be improbable. But there are two answers: First, whether appellants gained other benefits by the compromise can’t be determined from this record, but I strongly suspect that they did. Secondly, even if they did not, one can speculate that they were willing to give up very little (a Vsth royalty interest to which they had a very dubious claim) in the expectation that by so doing they gained a good chance of acquiring %ths mineral interest to 5.5 acres, by claiming that they acquired their interest from McEachern unleased, and which the outcome of this appeal now validates. Hence, they bargained very little for very much, and won. I would affirm the chancellor or, at least, remand the case with directions to grant the appellants’ motion for the submission of evidence on the issues “not completely developed in evidence or by the [chancellor’s] letter opinion.” In this fashion the case could be resolved, not on guesswork, but on relevant evidence. Where the issues have not been fully developed below, even due to common inadvertence of the parties, it is our practice in equity cases to remand for further proof. Hutchison v. Sheppard, 225 Ark. 14, 279 S.W. 2d 33 (1955). Adkisson, C.J., joins in this dissenting opinion.