Court Opinion

ID: 9830240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:00:55.314948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:16.648230
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The defendant in error has filed a very able motion for rehearing, which merits, and has received,- careful consideration. We recognize that the question presented by the appeal *641is not easy of determination, and we are not certain that the authorities are in harmony thereon. In a restudy of the question on rehearing, we have again considered the case of Theisen v. Robison, 117 Tex. 489, 8 S.W.(2d) 646, 651, which was made the basis of the holding in Little v. Childress, cited in our original opinion. We believe the question decided in that ease is not materially different from that involved here. Prom that opinion we quote: “In legal effect, the grants authorized by the acts are not essentially different from the grant in the ordinary oil and gas lease, such as was before the court in thd Stephens County Case [113 Tex. 160, 254 S. W. 290, 29 A. L. R. 566]. The ordinary lease confers first an option to explore for oil or gas, but, after discovery of oil or gas in paying quantities, it confers the right to produce and appropriate the oil or gas. It is immaterial that the right to appropriate the oil or gas under the 1917 and 1925 acts follows and does not precede the final lease, because, as already pointed out, the permittee or-lessee may compel the execution of the final lease on performing the obligations which the act imposes on him.”
To our minds this is authority for the holding that, one who has the right to compel delivery to him of a deed upon the performance of certain obligations or conditions imposed by his contract has an equitable estate in the land, even though the contract makes it optional whether the conditions are performed.
The motion for rehearing will be overruled.