Court Opinion

ID: 9693634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:53:47.979705+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:48.795548
License: Public Domain

FOURNET, Chief Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I am in full accord with the views expressed in the majority to the effect that “Under R.S, 30:105 it is unlawful for a purchaser of mineral products to withhold payment of any rentals, royalties, or other sums due to a party holding an interest in the minerals or under the lease, and under R.S. 30:107 a party in interest may obtain a writ of mandamus to compel payment of whatever may he due him." I do not, however, subscribe to the conclusion that the amount due relator is not fixed and certain and that, therefore, under the holding in State ex rel. Brown v. United Gas Public Service Company, 197 La. 616, 2 So.2d 41, it was not entitled to resort to the mandamus remedy in this case, for a mere reading of the Brown case clearly reveals it does not support this conclusion as the amount there sought to be recovered was neither certain, fixed, nor definite, whereas the contrary is true in the instant case.
In the Brown case (for the recovery of additional royalties under two mineral leases as well as the refund of payments for severance taxes deducted from the amounts actually paid relator) the producers of gas wells on property covered by two mineral leases paid the relator as roy*329alty for the gas so produced “one-eighth of 3 cents per thousand cubic feet corrected to the pressure set forth in the leases,”1 whereas, according to relator’s allegations, predicated upon information and belief, “the market price of dry gas per one thousand feet corrected to two pounds above atmospheric pressure in Richland Parish, during the years the gas was produced, was not less than 6 cents.” Inasmuch as such allegation was denied by the respondent, the court properly concluded this claim was neither definite nor certain and relator was without right to employ the mandamus proceeding to compel payment of the additional sums it contended were due under the lease provisions set out in Footnote No. 1. (The emphasis has been supplied by me.)
In the instant case, however, pursuant to an order of the Commissioner of Conservation of the State of Louisiana, certain duly recorded mineral leases owned by relator were force-pooled with the property on which the Begnaud No. 1 well was brought in as a producer, and in this order compelling the integration of the leases the interest of the relator in the entire production from that well was not only specifically stated to be .164146, but Joseph M. Jones, designated operator of the well by the Federal Power Commission, actually sold the entire production from the well to the respondent through his agent, the Texas Gas Exploration Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of respondent, for a fixed and definite price.
It is therefore obvious that the interest of the relator in the entire production from the Bagnaud Well No. 1 was certain and that it was sold for a fixed price. Consequently, there was nothing indefinite or uncertain with respect to the amounts due the relator for its interest in the entire production from this well as nothing was left to speculation. In these circumstances, it was unlawful, under the plain provisions of the law, for the respondent, as the purchaser of this entire production, to withhold from the relator the proportion of the purchase price represented by this .164146 interest and the latter was therefore entitled to compel such payment by mandamus proceedings.
The conclusion reached by the majority, in my opinion, has so emasculated the provisions of R.S. 30:105, et seq. as to render them ineffective for all practical purposes.

. The royalty clause in the first lease provided for payments to the relator as follows: “% of the value of such gas calculated at the prevailing market price at wells on two pounds pressure,” and, in the second lease at “one-eighth (%) of the value of such gas calculated at the rate of 3 cents per thousand cubic feet, corrected to two pounds above atmospheric pressure.”