Court Opinion

ID: 9834105
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:17:45.589635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:11.613095
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellants in their motion for rehearing complain in numerous respects of our state- . ment of the facts, as well as of our conclusions of law. Accordingly, we correct our former opinion in the following particulars:
We think the record fairly sustains appellants’ contention that instead of the representatives of the railroad commission and the game, fish and oyster commission merely acquiescing in the activities of Halbert and appellant oil company in digging such trenches, that same were dug upon the insistence if not the demand of such representatives of these departments, in order to prevent waste and the pollution of the waters of the Pecos river through the seepage of said oil, unless captured; into the river. There was no showing, however, as to how much of said oil so captured in such trenches would have escaped into the waters of the river, had no trenches been dug. The fact that the methods used by appellant oil company in capturing said oil may have been adopted upon the demand of these agents of the state, however, does not -alter our conclusion that these methods constituted “operating for” and “producing and saving”'oil from the.leased premises within the terms of the lease.
Appellants also complain that there is no evidence to sustain our statement that appellants had paid no royalty on said oil to any one. Perhaps our statement of the matter was too broad. It would perhaps be more ■ accurate to state that appellants have • paid no royalties on said oil to the appellees herein, who are, so far as the record shows, the only ones entitled to receive same.
With these corrections, which do not affect the conclusions announced in our opinion nor the judgment entered, said motion is overruled.
Overruled. '