Court Opinion

ID: 9446996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:23:06.864975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:51.922915
License: Public Domain

JONES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I cannot agree with the holding of the Court that there is ambiguity in the phrase “producing gas only”. There are, of course, differences between “dry gas” and “wet gas” as well as many other distinctions and gradations. It does not seem to me that there is anything in the instrument before the Court that permits of a construction that “gas only” may mean only dry gas. Applicable, so it seems to me, is the following:
An examination of the several instruments clearly discloses that the gas conveyed was not limited to any particular kind or character of gas, but the conveyance is all-embracing as regards gas, and covers and includes ‘all natural gas’. The term ‘all natural gas’ would include all the substances that come from the well as gas, and that regardless of whether such gas be wet or dry. It is undisputed in the evidence that the term ‘natural gas’ includes numerous elements or component parts, hut the very language of the conveyance is such as to include therein all these component parts which were gaseous when they came from the wells.” Lone Star Gas Co. v. Stine, Tex.Com.App., 41 S.W.2d 48, 49, 82 A.L.R. 1299. See Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Poe, Tex.Com.App., 29 S.W.2d 1019; Maddox v. Texas Company, D.C.E.D.Tex.1957, 150 F.Supp. 175; Sullivan, Handbook of Oil and Gas Law, pp. 15, et seq.
Being unpersuaded that the district court was in error, I respectfully dissent.