Court Opinion

ID: 9697990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:39:00.16692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:37.601064
License: Public Domain

*881McCALEB, Justice
(concurring).
I am persuaded that the main opinion reaches a desirable result in keeping with a realistic view of the problem confronting this Court in applying the Articles of the Civil Code to mineral servitudes in conjunction with lawful orders entered by the Commissioner of Conservation pursuant to modern techniques for the efficient recovery of oil and other minerals. While it can hardly be gainsaid that the extraction of oil from the portion of the encumbered land contained in the drilling units constituted a user of the servitude in a real sense, it was only because of the unitization orders that this user was effective in law forasmuch as no drilling explorations were ever conducted on any part of the land subject to the servitude. This being so, it seems only proper to conclude that interruption of prescription extends only to that portion of the land covered by the servitude from which the oil is actually withdrawn or where the user has taken place — that is, the part included within the drilling unit.
Under ordinary conditions a servitude is a whole right incapable of division. However, as this right may be subordinated to all lawful orders made in the interest of conservation, the conclusion appears inescapable that, when drilling units are established embracing a portion of the area subject to the servitude, its area is reduced by operation of law and the area lying within the drilling units excluded therefrom as long as the unitization order remains in effect.
I concur in the decree.