Court Opinion

ID: 9633809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:01:01.688285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:42.564508
License: Public Domain

JONES, Chief Judge.
I concur in the foregoing opinion, but with the following added comment:
Ordinarily only the owner of the land in which the oil is located or his assignee has any control over the production of the mineral, and consequently any interest in its extraction from the soil. But here the contracts are conditional and interwoven.
The State of California is the owner of the mineral and the land in which it is found.
If the State, as owner, had made an unconditional lease the economic interest would have been confined to the owner, or the lessee or any subsequent assignee of any interest or part interest from either of them.
But this was a conditional assignment. The only economic interest the lessee could possibly have was the right to extract and sell oil. To make his contract effective and give it any value or interest whatever, it had to be linked to a contract with plaintiff. Otherwise it would have no life and no value. The State law so provided. The contracts were thus tied together and became a part of the warp and woof of the same garment. Neither of the contracts standing alone was effective.
It took the second contract, that with plaintiff, to make the transaction complete. The two contracts were each part of a larger and more comprehensive contract without which no operations could even have been started. If the maker of one essential contract has no economic interest the maker of the other has • none.