Court Opinion

ID: 9693635
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:53:47.987818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:48.938353
License: Public Domain

McCALEB, Justice
(dissenting).
*331When the Commissioner of Conservation issued his order force-pooling the property on which relator holds a mineral lease with the property on which the Begnaud No. 1 well is situated, he made an admintrative finding of fact that the Begnaud well was draining gas from the property under lease to relator and also fixed the interest of relator in the production to be .164146 of the whole. This administrative finding imposed, in my opinion, a legal obligation on the defendant, as purchaser of the gas, to pay relator for its portion of any of the gas it thereafter took under its contract with the operator of the well. Its failure to do so was violative of the express provisions of R.S. 30 .TOS which declares that “It shall be unlawful * * * for any person purchasing mineral products to withhold payments of any rentals, royalties or other sums due to a party holding an interest in the minerals, or under [o] lease.” (Emphasis mine). And a writ of mandamus was the proper remedy under R.S, 30 TO7 for the enforcement of payment.
However, the majority say that, since relator has no contract with the defendant, it is not entitled to employ the provisions of R.S. 30 TOS and R.S. 30 TO7 and that it is relegated to an ordinary action. But I find no provision of the statute (R.S. 30 T0S, 106, 107) which requires that the legal right sought to be enforced emanate from a contractual obligation. On the contrary, the provisions of R.S. 30:105-107 simply refer to mineral rights which have been established and are incontestible, irrespective of whether they stem from a contract or from an administrative finding, as in this case. Indeed, the settled jurisprudence is that ordinarily, the writ of mandamus does not lie to compel corporations to perform obligations arising from contracts but has, as its function, the compelling of performance of a duty imposed by law. See State ex rel. Pollock v. Equitable Life Assurance Soc., 167 La. 342, 119 So. 71 and State ex rel. Brown v. United Gas Public Service Co., 197 La. 616, 2 So.2d 41, which is relied on heavily by the majority for its ruling herein.
There is nothing in the Brown case which militates against the views I entertain. This is clearly pointed out in the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Four-net herein. The Brown case is authority only for the proposition that, unless liability is established (I say either by contract or legal obligation) and fixed, resort may not be had to the writ of mandamus provided for by R.S. 30 T07.
The majority opinion further holds that relator cannot compel payment of the purchase price of the gas which relator agreed to pay the well operator under its contract for the reason that relator is not a party to the contract. In this deduction I readily agree but this circumstance does not jus*333tify, in my opinion, the holding that relator’s claim against defendant is not fixed, certain and liquidated.
Relator’s position, as I understand it, is simply that it is willing to accept from the defendant payment for its portion of the gas which the defendant has taken, the price fixed in defendant’s contract with the operator. Of course, defendant cannot, for the reasons given by the majority, be required to pay its contract price, but upon rejection of relator’s offer, it becomes liable, in my view, for the market price of the gas on the date of the taking. The determination of the amount of the payment to be ordered in such instance would be merely a matter of computation since the percentage of production, to which relator is entitled to payment, is specifically fixed in the Commissioner’s order.
A demand for the market price of a fixed percentage of an object is not, in my opinion, an uncertain or indefinite demand. It is well settled that “A claim which can be determined with exactness from the parties’ agreement or by arithmetical process on application of definite rules of law, * * * ” is a liquidated claim. See Yin v. Amino Products Co., 141 Ohio St. 21, 46 N.E.2d 610, 614 and Petersen v. Graham, 7 Wash.2d 464, 110 P.2d 149, 154, cited by Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th Ed. See also Black’s Law Dictionary defining a liquidated demand and citing with approval Rifkin v. Safenovitz, 131 Conn. 411, 40 A. 2d 188, 189, where it is stated that an amount claimed is a liquidated demand “[if] it is susceptible of being made certain in amount by mathematical calculations from factors which are or ought to be in possession or knowledge of the party to be charged.”
I respectfully dissent.