Court Opinion

ID: 9540218
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:13:43.194068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:44.044339
License: Public Domain

DOOLIN, Justice,
dissenting:
This Court today reverses itself, adopting a rule with which I cannot agree.
I can agree with the majority when it recites the elements or prerequisites to jurisdiction,1 and can agree jurisdiction should be assumed.
The reasons I cannot further concur are two: 2
1. The opinion of the Court raises and dignifies the paper records of the Corporation Commission to the height of a common law judgment roll. (A complete break with the historic development of administrative bodies).
2. The opinion ignores the time honored doctrine and distinction between true jurisdictional elements and quasi jurisdictional facts.
Spacing Order is a Quasi Jurisdictional Fact; A Condition Precedent
In Abraham v. Homer, 102 Okl. 12, 14, 226 P. 45, 47 (1924), we held:
“Whenever by a statute which the court has determined to be not merely directory but absolutely mandatory the Legislature has required acts to be done, and provides that the Court shall not render a particular judgment without facts showing compliance with such statute, then such facts are jurisdictional to the power of the Court to render that particular judgment.” (Emphasis supplied).
******
“All such facts not constituting proof of the existence of the subject matter, nor of the cause of action, but conditions precedent to the right of the Court to proceed after it has acquired jurisdiction over the subject matter and of the person, are known as quasi jurisdictional facts.”
A Court’s adjudication of quasi jurisdictional facts does not fall within the prohibition *381against a collateral attack on a final judgment. The making of proper distinction between quasi jurisdictional facts and jurisdictional facts determines the validity of a judgment. Abraham v. Homer, supra.
Is the entry of a spacing order prior to a pooling order a quasi jurisdictional fact and thus merely directory and not jurisdictional, or is such entry of a spacing order before a pooling order mandatory and a jurisdictional fact necessary to the jurisdiction and power of the Corporation Commission to render a pooling order? This Court in Abraham v. Homer, supra, held:
“In a federal court the fact that there is a diversity of citizenship, or that the amount of the controversy reaches the jurisdictional amount, is quasi jurisdictional. Other illustrations in such a court are that the amount of the indebtedness of petitioning debtor is within the amount prescribed by law. In probate matters, where the law provides that the estate of the decedent shall be sold where the personal property is insufficient to pay the debts of the deceased, then facts showing such indebtedness are quasi jurisdictional. Where, in probate proceedings, the law requires that the estate shall not be sold if all the heirs are minors, then facts showing that one or more of them had reached the age of majority are quasi jurisdictional. Generally speaking, quasi jurisdictional facts are those which do not constitute proof of the existence of the subject matter on the one hand, and do not constitute proof of a cause of action on the other, but are preliminary facts required to exist in order to authorize the Court to proceed and to act.” (Emphasis supplied).
In the present case the existence of an order creating a spacing unit is a quasi jurisdictional fact which does not constitute proof of the existence of the subject matter and cause of action, i. e. the pooling of working interest owners, but is a preliminary fact or a condition precedent required to exist in order to authorize the Court to proceed and to act. The existence of a spacing unit is a step provided by statute and constitutes a course or procedure in the process of entering a pooling order. The existence of a spacing unit does not “inhere in such degree as a material and substantial part of the judgment itself,” but is a preliminary fact “required to exist in order to authorize the court to proceed and to act.” Abraham v. Homer, supra, 102 Okl. 12, 226 P. at 48.
It is therefore my opinion that the existence of a spacing unit is not a jurisdictional prerequisite for a pooling order but is a preliminary quasi jurisdictional fact or condition precedent that must exist before the Commission has the right to proceed and issue a pooling order. It is my opinion that this is borne out by our statutory scheme. The purpose of the conservation statutes is to prevent waste and protect correlative rights. A pooling order protects the correlative rights of working interest owners by pooling their interests. A spacing order creates the unit, pools royalty interests within the unit, directs that only one well be drilled in the unit within a specific location, and prohibits the drilling of a well at another location or operating or drilling a well in violation of the spacing order. As Note, Oil & Gas: The Necessity of Obtaining a Pooling Order Before Drilling, 31 Okla.L.Rev. 451 (1978) points out, a spacing order is necessary and sufficient to satisfy the conservation purposes to prevent the waste of oil and gas. These purposes are accomplished by establishing a well spacing unit, designating a drilling area within the unit, and prohibiting the owners in the drilling unit from drilling anywhere within the tract other than on the designated drilling area. A pooling order is not necessary to give permission to drill to the owner desiring to do so. Such permission is granted at the time the spacing order is issued. A pooling order only protects the owner who wishes to drill on the designated drilling location on the land of another owner in the unit who does not want a well drilled, by providing that if he drills a dry hole he will not bear the entire loss himself. It follows that since the right to drill is granted at the time the spacing order is issued and not with a pooling order, and since the pooling order is only designed to protect the owner wishing to drill, the establishment of a drill*382ing unit prior to a pooling order being issued is not a jurisdiction fact material to the existence of the power of the Corporation Commission to issue a pooling order, but is a preliminary quasi jurisdictional fact, a procedural step or condition precedent required to exist before the Corporation Commission can proceed and issue a pooling order.
Quasi jurisdictional facts may not be inquired into in a collateral proceeding and therefore this Court should issue a writ of prohibition against the trial court.

Judgment Roll Status

The majority raises the function of a menial record keeper under the absolute control of the Corporation Commission to the status of a Clerk in a Common Law Court. It gives a predominantly administrative body, though admittedly a constitutional one, possessing judicial, legislative and executive power,3 the status of deciding what shall constitute an official judgment roll.4 This status is granted without check, restraint or guidance of any kind, for presumably only constitutional denials from such regulations might be reviewable.
The Corporation Commission’s power to act in legislative and judicial areas is limited.5 In other words, I find nothing within the Constitution of Oklahoma: Art. 9, Art. 4 § 1 and Art. 7 § 1, or the statutes which authorizes the establishment of officers with functions equivalent to the Clerk of the District Courts (Common Law Courts) or one of common law (general) jurisdiction. How may the Corporation Commission’s records be given common law effect and dignity by this Court? Who besides the Legislature or the people can grant such power? Certainly not the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, nor a quasi legislative body, the Corporation Commission.
We have wisely held common law procedural fetters and evidentiary rules need not strictly control Corporation Commission actions.6 The creation of common law equivalent to a judgment roll is a giant, and to me unauthorized, step from this position.
I suggest that the present reversal is an unauthorized and broad departure from our previous approach to proceeding before the Corporation Commission.
I am authorized to state that BARNES, V. C. J., and OPALA, J., concur in the views herein expressed.

. Fitzsimmons v. The City of Okla. City, 192 Okl. 248, 135 P.2d 340 (1942).

. Helmerich & Payne, Inc. v. Corporation Commission, supra, does not deal with jurisdictional requirements per se. It deals with and strikes down regulations and practices of Corporation Commission totally unauthorized and not implied within the conservation act. The question in Helmerich was the inclusion of spacing units situated in 9 separate non-contiguous sections as a pooling unit, where the common right to drill into a unit (interest or ownership) was not present and where the spacing unit was in excess of 640 acres.

. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co. v. Williams, 25 Okl. 662, 107 P. 428 (1910); Muskogee Gas & Electric Co. v. State, 81 Okl. 176, 186 P. 730 (1920) and Continental Tel. Co. of Okla. v. Hunter, 590 P.2d 667 (Okl.1979).

. 12 O.S.1971 § 23.

. Burmah Oil & Gas Co. v. Corporation Commission, 541 P.2d 834 (Okl.1975) and Merritt v. Corporation Commission, 438 P.2d 495 (Okl.1968).

. Peppers Rfg. Co. v. Corporation Commission, 198 Okl. 451, 179 P.2d 899, 904 (1947), a case dealing with allowables. See also Halpin v. Corporation Commission, 575 P.2d 109, 111 (Okl.1977), a case concerning exceptions to drilling patterns and penalties (allowables).