Court Opinion

ID: 9858140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:16:30.928192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:21.658592
License: Public Domain

SUTTON, Justice
(dissenting).
This lease ceased to produce from the bottom sand in November 1946. The plaintiffs concede the lease terminated on that date by virtue of its own terms and they ¡had no further rights under it, except to remove their personal property and fixtures as provided under the terms of the lease, including the removal of casing in the wells, which was a right under the law and a specific provision of the lease contract. Plaintiffs admit they never at any time desired to remove the casing nor sought to do so until after they found the subsequent lessees working the well in 1948, but had hoped to secure a new lease and rework it themselves.
The casing had been pulled from well'No. 5 and the well plugged. The casing tould not be pulled from wells 3 and 4 and it had been abandoned in the wells. The testimony is it was not known and could not be known until the effort was made to pull the casing whether any of it or how much of it could be pulled. It was conceded some 2800 or 2900 feet of it could not be pulled because it had been cemented in. That was the bottom string. Five hundred sacks of cement had been run into the hole to cement the bottom string. It was estimated this cemented in the 2800 or 2900 feet of that string, (but might have come even higher.
The Texas Company had an option to purchase at salvage value any well proposed to be abandoned and plugged and the assignees were required to give written notice of such intention and purpose and the Texas Company had 20 days after the receipt of such notice to exercise their option. The option specifically covered the casing in the well. The notice required was never given, so far as the record shows, on well No. 1.
No application to plug and abandon was ever given the Railroad Commission, because the plaintiffs had not abandoned their desire to rework the well. In short, nothing had been done either at the date the release was executed or at the time they sought to remove the casing, unless paid for it by the subsequent lessees, in 1948. ■ In other words, it is not shown they ever had a right to remove the casing.
At the time the release was executed the only contingent right plaintiffs .had under the lease was, to remove the casing. They released, relinquished and forever quit-claimed any and all rights whatsoever held or claimed by them under the lease. There is ample evidence, if the instrument were ambiguous, from which it might be concluded they intended the instrument to cover the casing. But, in ¿11 events, the terms are plain and clear and they cannot be heard to say they intended-to or did reserve any right under the lease. The intention of the parties is to be gathered from the terms of the instrument. . :
*930Aside from the fact the evidence conclusively shows the plaintiffs had at no time secured their right to remove the casing and the evidence is insufficient to establish any damages, the release by its plain unambiguous terms precludes them, in my opinion.