Court Opinion

ID: 9560637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:52:52.902769+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:03.859143
License: Public Domain

ALMA WILSON, Justice,
dissenting:
Appellee brought this action seeking to establish ownership rights to coal underlying land acquired from the Commissioners of the Land Office of the State of Oklahoma by Appellee’s predecessors in interest.
By virtue of 64 O.S.1981 § 1, Appellant, the Commissioners of the Land Office of the State of Oklahoma, administers a federally created trust as set out in the Oklahoma Enabling Act. This trust originated from lands and monies which were engifted to the State at the time it was admitted to the Union in 1907. Investment of permanent trust funds includes first mortgages upon improved farm land within the State of Oklahoma. In the event that such mortgaged property is foreclosed, the title to the land is vested in the State and this land becomes a part of the corpus of the trust. The beneficiaries of this trust are the common schools of the State of Oklahoma.
As a condition of statehood the State of Oklahoma pledged its faith to preserve the lands and monies of this sacred trust for the beneficiaries to whom it is dedicated. Article XI, § 2 of the Oklahoma Constitution, provides as follows:
“... The principal shall be deemed a trust fund held by the State, and shall forever remain inviolate. It may be increased, but shall never be diminished. The State shall reimburse said permanent school fund for all losses thereof which may in any manner occur....” [Emphasis added.]
The Commissioners, as trustees of the school land trust, thus, do not stand in the same shoes as an ordinary landowner, but must carry out their constitutional duty to the trust in a way which will maximize revenue to uphold their obligations to the *1348sacred trust. Oklahoma Education Association, Inc. v. Honorable George Nigh, 642 P.2d 230 (Okla.1982). Although the Commissioners are to be guided by the legislative enactments in the administration of the trust, these statutes cannot contravene the constitutional mandate to preserve the trust. Indeed, it must be presumed that the Legislature predicated these statutes upon the constitutional conditions imposed upon the trust and intended to maximize the preservation of valuable rights for the benefit of the common schools of this State. The express designation of the school lands and funds as a “sacred trust” has the effect of irrevocably incorporating into the Enabling Act, the Oklahoma Constitution, and conditions of the grant, all the rules of law and duties governing the administration of trusts. No act of the Legislature can validly alter, modify or diminish the State’s duty as Trustee of the school land trust to administer it in a manner most beneficial to the trust estate and in a manner which obtains the maximum benefit in return from the use of trust property or loan of trust funds.
In the present case, the Commissioners’ authority to sell state school lands or any interest in them must be viewed, first, within the mandate of the constitutional grant; and secondly, within the context of statutory procedures for the administration of the trust construed in a manner consistent with the constitutional trust mandate; and thirdly, within the terms of the sale contract and certificate of purchase. According to statutory procedures, the following offer appeared in the notice for the sale of the state owned property which is the subject of this appeal:
“At such sale there shall be reserved and retained unto the state forever, title to fifty percentum of all the oil, gas and other mineral rights in and under all lands that may be sold. The purchaser will receive an undivided fifty per cen-tum of all the oil, gas, and other mineral rights in and under all tracts hereby offered....”
Taking into consideration the constitutional trust mandate, consistent legislative enactments pertaining thereto, and the language in the granting clause under the doctrine of ejusdem generis, the only mineral rights received by Appellee upon acceptance of the offer amounted to 50% of oil, gas and the constituents thereof. Appellee was not offered and did not receive any interest in coal upon his purchase of the tracts in question. The majority’s holding to the contrary results in a deprivation of valuable minerals owned by the school land trust estate and diminishes the corpus of the trust funds in violation of the Enabling Act, the Constitution and the laws of the State of Oklahoma.
I dissent.