Court Opinion

ID: 9645371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:23:02.010394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:28.072371
License: Public Domain

*431GRAY, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the result reached by Chief Justice Archer affirming the judgment of the trial court in this cause. However, I do not agree that the doctrines of laches and estoppel are applicable to the issues presented.
On January 8, 1959 Pan American filed its application with the Commission seeking a revision of the allocation formula applicable to the field in question. This application contained allegations that conditions in the field have materially changed since the May 1, 1958 order. This application was denied hy the Commission January 12, 1959. This suit is termed an appeal from that order.
As I understand the record appellants do not assert that changes in the conditions of the reservoir have developed since the May 1, 1958 order but say that numerous wells have been completed as producers in the field.
It is my opinion that if the record was such as to require an adjudication of the issues of changed conditions in the reservoir as presented to the Commission then the cause could not have been properly disposed of by summary judgment proceedings in the trial court. Such however is not the case before us. The mere completion of producing wells in the field are not such changed conditions as require the Commission to revise or amend its proration formulae — no change in the reservoir ■conditions being shown. If this were true then the completion of every producing ■well in the field would call for such revision and amendment and the rules of the Commission could never be reasonably ¿stable.