Court Opinion

ID: 9536249
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 06:56:37.539408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:29.499724
License: Public Domain

DOOLIN, Justice,
concurring in part; dissenting in part.
This is a case of first impression.
I concur with the conclusion of the majority as to non-severed mineral interests. I cannot agree with the majority in regard to its treatment of severed mineral estates.
Oklahoma, it is true, has adopted the common law doctrine of riparian rights (12 O.S.1971 § 2). Riparian in its strict sense is descriptive of the right attaching or belonging to land bordering, touching, or adjacent to a stream. Thus, lands are riparian that lie along or border a stream, and littoral if bounded by a sea, tidal water or a considerable body of water. It is fundamental that accretion cannot occur unless the land to which it attaches bounds the stream and is contiguous thereto.1
Although common law riparian rights reflect a long history in Anglo-American law they should not be sacrosanct or enlarged upon except for good cause. Various state courts have found it necessary to curtail, abrogate and modify principles of common law, especially with regard to water rights.2
Our adoption statute, 12 O.S.1971 § 2, states the common law may be modified by the “conditions and wants of the people” *44and “by judicial decision.” Thus, if we accept the basic premise of the necessity of contiguity before accretion may involve, we must find severed mineral interests in a fugacious substance (oil and gas) are contiguous to the stream. In my opinion, accretion to an interest in reality of fugacious matter is impossible after the adoption and development of Oklahoma’s theories as to severed mineral interests. 12 O.S.1971 § 2 provides for modification of the common law doctrines, and we have long ago approved a modification of such doctrines by the development or theory of severed mineral interests. The act of severance or reservation of mineral interests in real property common to oil and gas transactions creates two separate estates, surface and mineral. These estates are as separate as the fingers of the hand, or as two parcels of land.3 The end result of accretion and prescription is the same, albeit. One is the result of an Act of God or “vis major” and the other the affirmative action of a person. Logically, can a “force majeure” bring about a different result from an affirmative act of man?
I would not do violence to the common law doctrine of accretion. It protects the right of the riparian or littoral owner to the accumulation of precious metals or stones on the bank of the stream as well as his right to the alluvial soil itself.4 But not so, separate mineral estates such as oil and gas that are locked deep in the bowels of the earth, for they are separate fingers, parcels or estates in the land.
I would also make it clear that severed mineral interests may never increase their interest by the process of accretion.
The final mischief created or propounded by the majority is the implied right granted to a severed mineral owner to go upon the surface and protect his estate. This, I suggest, makes the surface estate subservient to and burdened with a dominant tenement of an unprecedented nature.
What rights have been granted to such a mineral owner? Has the mineral owner been afforded species of private eminent domain? If the surface is being used for agricultural purposes or other beneficial uses, what weirs, what levies, fills, dead men, lines, cables or other paraphernalia are to be allowed? The majority’s new right is scarcely equivalent to the implied covenants to develop found in the law of oil and gas for only a right to capture or explore was intended in the instant mineral conveyance.
I have grave doubts the English common law, as imported into this nation at prere-volutionary times and thence to us, contemplated, encompassed or understood the nature of severed mineral estates of a fuga-cious nature. It is the genius of the common law as set forth in § 2, supra, which has allowed modification by judicial decisions. In sum, the majority seeks to enforce a common law right which has been previously modified by judicial decision. It assumes that such a right exists in Oklahoma. I doubt that it does, inasmuch as severed mineral interests were unheard of and unknown at the time of development of riparian rights and trafficking in mineral interests began in Oklahoma long before statehood.
Severed mineral estates have long been recognized in Oklahoma. In Cuff v. Koslosky, 165 Okl. 135, 25 P.2d 290, 294 (1933), we recognized that an appraisement under 12 O.S.1971 § 759 was necessary before a severed mineral estate could be sold. In Martin v. Atkinson, Warren & Henley Co., 195 Okl. 19, 154 P.2d 945, 946 (1945), we held holders of severed mineral estates must be served with notice before such right can be extinguished by. a certificate tax deed; to the same effect see Walker v. Hoffman, 405 P.2d 57 (Okl.1965).5 Likewise, Douglass v. Mounce, 303 P.2d 430 (Okl.1956). Sautbine v. Keller, 423 P.2d 447 (Okl.1966) and Gesell *45v. Martin, 463 P.2d 697 (Okl.App.1969) indicate that adverse possession of surface estate will not affect the severed mineral estate. They hold the only manner in which a person may acquire title or interest in minerals by adverse possession . is to take by opening and operating mines for the statutory period, Mohoma Oil Co. v. Ambassador Oil Co., 474 P.2d 950, 960 (Okl.1970).
In my opinion the stability of land titles and the sanctity of private ownership of property dictates that this Court adopt the following doctrines:
1. Rights of severed mineral holders are well established in Oklahoma and should be upheld.
2. The common rule of accretion was never intended to apply to severed mineral estates.
3. Accretion to severed mineral estates is impossible because there is no contiguity.
4. There can be no implied right to burden the surface with the paraphernalia or burdens of a subservient tenement.
I dissent as to accreting rights of severed mineral owners.

. Spreckels v. Brown, 212 U.S. 208, 29 S.Ct. 256, 58 L.Ed. 476 (1909); Fowler v. Wood, 73 Kan. 511, 85 P. 763 (1906); Gubser v. Town, 202 Or. 55, 273 P.2d 430 (1954) and Olsen v. Jones, 412 P.2d 162 (Okl.1966).

. San Joaquin & King’s River Canal & Irrigation Co. v. Fresno Flume & Irrigation Co., 158 Cal. 626, 112 P. 182 (1910). The California Court held: “If a rule of common law is unfitted to the changed conditions existing in this state, so that its application will work hardship, the Supreme Court will not follow it. See also Reno Smelting, Milling and Reduction Works v. Stevenson, 20 Nev. 269, 21 P. 317 (1889); Coffin v. Left Hand Ditch Co., 6 Colo. 443 (1882). Cf. Clark v. Allaman, 71 Kan. 206, 80 P. 571 (1905); Canada v. City of Shawnee, 179 Okl. 53, 64 P.2d 694 (1937).

. Deruy v. Noah, 199 Okl. 230, 185 P.2d 189, 191 (1947) and May v. Archer, 302 P.2d 768, 770 (Okl.1956).

. Treasure trove is the property of the owner on whose land it is found, as is lost or stolen property his against all but the true owner.

.68 O.S.Sup'p.1979 § 24323.1 indicates the legislative intent to uphold the rights of severed mineral estates and amendment of the common law.