Court Opinion

ID: 9654988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:57:09.233665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:15.288200
License: Public Domain

DODSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s disposition of this case. Amarillo Oil Company is the appellant and Energy-Agri Products, Inc. is appellee. The majority sustained the appellee’s first crosspoint, invoked the doctrine of primary jurisdiction *119(i.e., in a case involving an administrative agency), and dismissed the appellant’s cause of action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. I disagree.
By its first four crosspoints of error, the appellee, in essence, maintains that the appellant’s cause of action constitutes an impermissible collateral attack on the Texas Railroad Commission’s classification of ap-pellee’s wells as oil wells, and the Commission’s designation of the Panhandle Field as a common reservoir. However, as I read the appellant’s pleading and the record before us, the appellant does not attempt either directly or indirectly to challenge the Commission’s classification of ap-pellee’s wells. Nor does the appellant seek to challenge the Commission’s designation of the Panhandle Field as a common reservoir.
By its pleadings, the appellant alleges that the appellee is producing and converting appellant’s gas and the appellant seeks to enjoin the appellee from that conduct. Thus, in essence the appellant claims that the substance being produced by appellee is appellant’s gas rather than appellee’s oil and casinghead gas, that by producing the substance in question the appellee is converting appellant’s gas, and that the appel-lee should be enjoined from producing and converting appellant’s gas.
It is undisputed that the appellant owns the gas under the property in question; and, that the appellee owns the oil and casinghead gas under the same property. Likewise, it is undisputed that the appellant has been producing gas from the property for over thirty years, and, that the appellee is producing and intends to further produce a substance the appellee claims to be oil or casinghead gas. Consequently, the real and primary matter in dispute between the parties is the ownership of the substance being produced by the appellee (i.e., is the substance the ap-pellee’s oil or casinghead gas, or is the substance appellant’s gas?).
It is well settled and the majority acknowledges that the Railroad Commission does not have authority to determine the ownership of oil or gas. Railroad Commission of Texas v. City of Austin, 524 S.W.2d 262, 267-68 (Tex.1975). To the same legal effect are: Jones v. Killingsworth, 403 S.W.2d 325, 328 (Tex.1965); Nale v. Carroll, 155 Tex. 555, 289 S.W.2d 743, 745 (1956); Ryan Consolidated Petroleum Co. v. Pickens, 155 Tex. 221, 285 S.W.2d 201, 207 (1955); and Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Railroad Commission, 141 Tex. 96, 170 S.W.2d 189 (1943). As the Court stated in Austin:
This Court has also held on several occasions that the Commission does not have power to determine title to land or property rights. It is invested with broad powers to determine where, or whether, wells may be drilled, and how much oil or gas may be produced. But it does not have authority to determine the ownership of oil or gas, or how the proceeds from the sale of oil or gas should be apportioned among people who contend that it was, or is, actually being produced from beneath their land, [emphasis added]
Since, in this instance, the controversy is who owns the substance being produced by the appellee, and whether the appellee should be enjoined from producing that substance, the appellant’s cause of action is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the trial court, rather than the Railroad Commission.
Nevertheless, the majority holds that the appellant’s cause of action is a collateral attack on the Commission’s classifications of appellee’s wells and reservoir designations. However, those determinations by the Railroad Commission cannot serve to transfer ownership of the appellant’s gas to the appellee. Nor can those determinations transfer the ownership of appellee’s oil and casinghead gas. In sum, the Commission’s well and reservoir designations do not and cannot resolve the questions as to who owns the substance being produced from appellee’s wells. The fact that the substance is being produced from appel-lee’s wells, which are classified as oil wells, does not make the substance oil or casing-head gas. The ownership of the substance *120simply is not a matter within the Railroad Commission’s jurisdiction.
The majority relies on several cases to support its position that the appellant’s cause of action is a collateral attack on the Commission’s well classification and reservoir designation and should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. I deem unnecessary a case-by-case analysis of the majority’s authority to demonstrate that those cases are not applicable in the case before us. It is sufficient to state that in my view those cases are neither persuasive nor controlling in this instance. Consequently, I would overrule the appellee’s first four crosspoints. In that regard, I wish to state that I have considered the appellant’s nine points of error and conclude that those points of error do not present cause for disturbing the trial court’s judgment.
In sum, I would overrule the appellee’s first four crosspoints, overrule the appellant’s nine points of error, and affirm the trial court’s judgment. Since the majority’s opinion requires a different disposition of this case, I respectfully dissent.