Morris v. Union Oil Co. of California

Decision Date11 May 1981
Docket NumberNo. 80-460,80-460
Citation96 Ill.App.3d 148,51 Ill.Dec. 770,421 N.E.2d 278
Parties, 51 Ill.Dec. 770 Francis L. MORRIS and Evelyn Morris, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNION OIL COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA et al., Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Appellate Court of Illinois

John R. Meyer, Meyer & Meyer, Flora, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Ben H. Rice, Vinson & Elkins, Houston, Tex., Smith, McCollum, Riggle & Moses, Flora, for Union Oil Co. of California, Joe Dees, Burnside, Dees & Johnston, Vandalia, for all appellees except Union Oil. Co.

HARRISON, Justice:

In the present action the appellants, Francis and Evelyn Morris, have sought to establish ownership of a 100.5-acre tract of land unencumbered by a reservation of the mineral interest therein held by former grantors in the chain of title. The matters concerned have been before this court in earlier proceedings styled Morris v. Mayden (5th Dist.1976) 35 Ill.App.3d 338, 341 N.E.2d 428, leave to appeal denied (1976) 63 Ill.2d 552, hereinafter referred to as "Morris I ".

Appellants seek to determine whether the present litigation, instituted by complaint on November 23, 1976, is barred under the doctrine of res judicata due to the earlier proceedings. The appellee, Union Oil Company of California, has filed a cross-appeal questioning the propriety of the circuit court's action vacating a prior dismissal of this suit which action made possible the present appeal. We affirm the decision of the circuit court.

In order that our disposition of this cause be fully comprehensible, it is necessary to review certain of the facts set out in our opinion in Morris I. On April 14, 1936, Zoa Moseley, as lessor, entered into an oil and gas lease with R. Z. McGowen for the drilling and development of her property; the subject property is located in Clay County, Illinois. The habendum clause in the lease provides that it shall "remain in force for a term of ten (10) years from this date, and as long thereafter as oil or gas or either of them is produced from said land by lessee." By proper assignment the present defendant, Union Oil Company, became the successor in interest of the lessee McGowen. In paragraph 5 of their amended complaint of November 22, 1978, the plaintiffs state they do not dispute the continued existence of this lease relationship as between Union Oil Company and the successors of Zoa Moseley who are among the present defendants. According to their brief appellants are without personal knowledge but do not contest the fact or allegation that there has been continuous production from wells located within the physical boundaries of the concerned tract throughout the lease, up to and including the time at which this appeal was taken.

On May 31, 1957, some time after the death of Zoa Moseley, the surface estate was conveyed to Donald Hardy by her heirs. The warranty deed reserved to the heirs as grantors all interest in the oil, gas and other minerals lying in, on and under the described real estate, or that might be produced from it, "for the period for which the present oil and gas lease * * * remains in effect; * * *." The reservation provided that following the termination of the 1936 lease, the grantors would continue to retain an undivided one-half interest in the same mineral estate. An executory interest thus exists in the remaining one-half interest which becomes possessory when and if the 1936 lease should terminate. By the same paragraph 5 referred to above in their amended complaint, plaintiffs do not now challenge the validity or continued effect of this mineral reservation up to the date August 31, 1968.

On August 28, 1959, title to the surface estate passed to the present plaintiffs subject to the recorded mineral reservation. All of the litigation which has ensued has involved an attempt by the plaintiffs to obtain either a partial or an entire interest in the mineral estate based upon the executory interest already mentioned.

In 1968 the tract was joined with approximately 2000 neighboring acres in what was designated the Bunnyville Consolidated Unit. This project undertaken by Union Oil Company consolidated prior separate oil and gas leases in the area, owned by some 345 individuals, into one operating unit. Its purpose was to facilitate the use of secondary extraction methods in order to recover oil and gas deposits unobtainable through primary production methods. The instrument consolidating these leases, denominated the Royalty Owners' Unitization Agreement (hereinafter referred to as the "Unitization Agreement"), was entered into by the present defendants as royalty owners succeeding Zoa Moseley in the capacity of lessor. The instrument is necessary because secondary recovery methods depend upon operation without regard to property lines within the unit. By its express terms it serves to amend existing leases for purposes of the consolidation but otherwise leaves them in full force and effect. Article 3.3 expressly provides that continuing production in the Unit Area shall continue lease term royalty interests such as the one stemming from the Zoa Moseley 1936 lease. The trial court in Morris I found that within the meaning of the terms of the 1936 lease the operating efforts of Union Oil Company in unit production acted in fulfillment of its 1936 leasehold obligations. Therefore, it held that the original lease continued in effect.

Plaintiffs' first complaint in this long-lasting dispute was filed on December 1, 1970. Their initial action sought to rescind the Unitization Agreement as it applied to the mineral estate over which they claim a superior interest vis-a-vis the defendant royalty owners. In addition, they requested an injunction against recovery operations affecting the estate, and damages for oil and gas wrongfully appropriated from the date of March 1, 1968, the time at which the Unitization Agreement was entered into. The action was dismissed with prejudice in the circuit court of Clay County, which disposition we affirmed. (Morris v. Mayden (5th Dist.1976), 35 Ill.App.3d 338, 341 N.E.2d 428.) The Illinois Supreme Court subsequently denied leave to appeal, thus ending direct review of the matter.

But some months later, on November 23, 1976, the same plaintiffs filed the present action in Clay County Circuit Court. As finally amended, Count I of their pleadings seeks to quiet title in their asserted interest in the whole of the identical mineral estate, to rescind any leasehold interests running between the defendants, namely, the 1936 lease, but excepting the existing unitization agreement. Additionally, they seek an accounting for royalties properly attributable to them pursuant to commitment of the interest to the Unitization Agreement and for the net value of proceeds attributable to the value of minerals extracted from their estate by the defendant, Union Oil Company, from and after August 1, 1968, the alleged date of the implementation of the Unitization Agreement. In the alternative, Count II, under the theory of ejectment, seeks to establish title in fee simple absolute in the entire mineral estate, or alternatively, in an undivided one-half interest in that estate, stemming from the executory interest, together with a claim for damages to be filed at a later date pursuant to Ill.Rev.Stat.1977, ch. 45, par. 44 et seq. It is central to the decision of the present appeal that we state what it was that Morris I determined. And normally this is governed by the judgment of the circuit court which has become final through affirmance. (Baird & Warner, Inc. v. Addison Industrial Park, Inc. (1st Dist.1979), 70 Ill.App.3d 59, 66, 26 Ill.Dec. 1, 387 N.E.2d 831.) In the former adjudication the trial court proceedings ended at the pleading stages. On February 1, 1974, the circuit court ordered the plaintiffs' amended complaint dismissed for failure to state a cause of action against the defendants, based upon their failure to demonstrate a present interest in the mineral estate under contest. Lengthy and detailed pleadings preceded this dismissal which set forth all of the material legal instruments which the court was required to construe based on the allegations presented. We affirmed that disposition on appeal because the plaintiffs had nowhere in the pleadings alleged that production of oil and gas had ceased to flow from the term acreage. The absence of this crucial allegation was the central fact supporting the ratio decidendi of the case. We stated 35 Ill.App.3d at page 341, 341 N.E.2d 428 of Morris I that the primary question to be decided was whether plaintiffs' interest in one-half of the mineral rights had ripened from an executory interest into a possessory one. Without such an interest they had no legal ground on which to base a complaint; the alleged cause of action did not exist in law. This was the basis of the trial court's judgment. And we affirmed that the defendants had correctly challenged the legal sufficiency of the pleadings.

In the federal jurisprudence two branches of estoppel are applied to bar the maintenance of a cause of action. The term res judicata is applied to the more sweeping doctrine which prohibits the relitigation of claims and issues that were raised or could have been raised by a prior action between the same parties or their privies which has been resolved by final judgment on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction. This branch has been referred to as "claim preclusion" based on its broad effect. Collateral estoppel or "issue preclusion", stands for the doctrine which forecloses the relitigation of particular issues of either fact or law that are logically and legally necessary in reaching the prior judgment where such issues are again raised by at least one of the parties to the prior suit. The preclusion remains despite the fact that a different cause of action is pleaded in the subsequent proceedings. (Allen v. McCurry (1980), --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308.)...

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