Baker v. Weinberg

Decision Date16 May 2008
Docket NumberNo. 2005-CA-001326-MR.,2005-CA-001326-MR.
Citation266 S.W.3d 827
PartiesRose BAKER; Helen Martin; James R. Baker, Jr.; And Darwin Martin, Appellants, v. Lois WEINBERG; Burl Wells Spurlock; Jed Weinberg; B.B. King; Jesse Hagewood; Betty Minix; and Nell Hagewood, all on behalf of T.A. Martin Partners; Lambert-Spurlock Partnership; and Clean Gas Company, Inc., Appellees.
CourtKentucky Court of Appeals

William P. Sturm, Lexington, KY, for Appellant.

Ronald G. Combs, Hazard, KY, Randy A. Campbell, Hindman, KY, for Appellee.

Before LAMBERT and WINE, Judges; HENRY,1 Senior Judge.

OPINION

HENRY, Senior Judge.

Surface owners Rose Baker, Helen Martin, James R. Baker Jr., and Darwin Martin appeal from an order of the Knott Circuit Court awarding summary judgment to the appellees in a dispute involving the ownership and leasehold of the oil and gas rights underlying the appellants' surface property. For the reasons stated below, we vacate the award of summary judgment and remand for additional proceedings consistent with this opinion.

In the nineteenth century John W. Bates came into ownership of property situated in the Bates Branch area of Knott County. Following his death in 1889, the portion of that property we are concerned with came to be owned by Miles Bates, Sr. Prior to his death, Miles, Sr. conveyed a portion of this land to his sons Columbus Bates (Rose and Helen's father) and Gratz Bates. Upon Columbus's death, his tract descended to Rose. Gratz's tract eventually descended to his son Jessie Bates, and was thereafter purchased by Helen and Darwin.

In the meantime, in 1912 Miles, Sr., and his wife severed the mineral rights from the surface rights and deeded the mineral rights to Tandy Martin. In 1944 and 1945 Tandy Martin leased the oil and gas rights to the mineral tract to W.W. Cooley. In approximately 1945 a gas well was drilled on the section of the property now owned by Helen and Darwin. At about this same time the T.A. Martin2 Partnership was formed with the objective of working the well. It appears that the Partnership had acquired the oil and gas rights of the Cooley lease, and thus those partners and their successors (if the lease is still valid) are the persons entitled to remove gas from the mineral estate. The record discloses that the well was drilled by Lawrence Hall, who was also a member of the Partnership. It further appears that Hall was the operator of the well and the well was registered in his name.

The appellants contend that Hall was promptly "shooed out," and that no commercial production of gas has ever occurred in connection with the well. There is other evidence of record, however, that the well produced wholesale gas from 1945 until 1981, when Columbus Bates did indeed chase off the well tender at gunpoint. There is evidence in the record that following this incident the decision was made to cease operating the well to "avoid getting somebody killed."

In 1971 Tandy Martin leased the coal rights to his mineral tract to Ray Fraley. In 1979 Ray subleased the rights to his son, Carl Ray Fraley. In 1980 Carl Ray and the heirs of Tandy Martin filed a lawsuit naming, among others, Columbus Bates and Jessie Bates, to enforce Carl Ray's right to mine the coal. On May 23, 1982, final judgment was entered in the case. The judgment stated, among other things, that "it is further ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Plaintiffs, heirs of T.A. Martin, are the owners of all the mineral thereon and underlying the lands described in the deed from Miles Bates and Angeline Bates, his wife, to T.A. Martin, dated December 16, 1912. ..."3 The appellants contend that the judgment has "never been enforced," and that the minerals underlying their property were not disturbed until the events precipitating the present lawsuit.

Clean Gas is a family gas business owned by Bill Weinberg, his wife Lois Combs Weinberg, their son Jed Weinberg and, it appears, by other members of the Weinberg family. Clean Gas seeks out gas leases in Eastern Kentucky and sells the removed gas to wholesale gas distributors.

Columbus Bates died March 20, 1996. Thereafter Clean Gas became interested in working the 1945 well. The record reflects that members of the Weinbergs' extended family were successors to interests in the T.A. Martin Partnership which, again, had been assigned the W.W. Cooley lease in the 1940s.

Believing that the lease was still valid, Clean Gas set about locating other successors to interests in the T.A. Martin Partnership, including Burl Wells Spurlock, B.B. King, Jesse Hagewood, Betty Minix, and Nell Hagewood. In due course Clean Gas assembled what it alleges to be a majority of the T.A. Martin Partnership interests and, in effect, obtained a vote from the partners to remove gas from the Tandy Martin mineral estate, beginning with reworking the 1945 well. As part of its preparations Clean Gas executed a Department of Mines and Minerals Well Transfer form dated August 21, 1997, purporting to transfer from Lawrence Hall (who was then deceased) to Clean Gas the operating rights to the 1945 well.

In August 1997 Clean Gas first entered upon the property to commence gas operations, including reworking the 1945 well. In connection with this, Clean Gas graded a road to the well which it claims constituted the original surface easement to the well, a claim denied by the appellants. The appellants quickly moved to stop the Clean Gas operations by, among other things, felling a tree to block the newly graded road to the well.

On September 17, 1997, the above captioned appellees filed a complaint in Knott Circuit Court.4 The Complaint sought an injunction restraining the appellants from interfering with the appellees' efforts to exercise their rights to the Tandy Martin mineral tract as successor in interest to the Cooley lease. At about the same time the appellees obtained a temporary injunction restraining the appellants from interfering with their gas operations on the Tandy Martin mineral tract.

The appellants answered, and also filed a counter-claim seeking, among other things, to quiet title to the mineral tract in their favor on the basis of adverse possession.5 They also sought damages for the appellees' trespass onto their property. We note at this point that no Tandy Martin heirs, known or unknown, are identified as parties to the litigation. As owners of the mineral estate, they would be entitled to royalties under the Cooley lease and, further, would be crucial parties to any litigation purporting to affect their ownership to the mineral estate.

Following extensive litigation, on March 3, 2005, the trial court entered an award of summary judgment in favor of the appellees on the basis that the 1982 judgment in the prior lawsuit was res judicata as to all issues in the case. On May 24, 2005, the trial court entered an order modifying the prior judgment to reflect that summary judgment was not granted upon the appellants' claim for property damages. This appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The standard of review on appeal when a trial court grants a motion for summary judgment is "whether the trial court correctly found that there were no genuine issues as to any material fact and that the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Scifres v. Kraft, 916 S.W.2d 779, 781 (Ky.App.1996); Kentucky Rule of Civil Procedure (CR) 56.03. "The trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and summary judgment should be granted only if it appears impossible that the nonmoving party will be able to produce evidence at trial warranting a judgment in his favor." Lewis v. B & R Corp., 56 S.W.3d 432, 436 (Ky.App.2001), citing Steelvest v. Scansteel Serv. Ctr., Inc., 807 S.W.2d 476, 480-82 (Ky.1991).

"The moving party bears the initial burden of showing that no genuine issue of material fact exists, and then the burden shifts to the party opposing summary judgment to present `at least some affirmative evidence showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact for trial.'" Lewis, 56 S.W.3d at 436, citing Steelvest, 807 S.W.2d at 482. The trial court "must examine the evidence, not to decide any issue of fact, but to discover if a real issue exists." Steelvest, 807 S.W.2d at 480. The Kentucky Supreme Court has held that the word "impossible," as set forth in the standard for summary judgment, is meant to be "used in a practical sense, not in an absolute sense." Lewis, 56 S.W.3d at 436. "Because summary judgment involves only legal questions and the existence of any disputed material issues of fact, an appellate court need not defer to the trial court's decision and will review the issue de novo." Lewis at 436.

QUIET TITLE ISSUES

In their counterclaim, the appellants asserted title to the Tandy Martin mineral tract upon the basis of adverse possession. The trial court awarded summary judgment on this issue based upon the 1982 judgment in the coal lease case and the doctrine of res judicata.

Four of the arguments raised by the appellants concern their adverse possession claim: Argument 3 that "there is a question of material fact concerning Rose's and Helen's adverse possession claim to the oil and gas"; Argument 4 that "the alleged assignments of the oil and gas lease to [appellees] are champertous and void" based upon the appellants' adverse possession of the mineral tract; Argument 5 that "the doctrine of res judicata does not apply to this case"; and Argument 8 that "[the appellees] abandoned any rights [they] had in the 1982 judgment."

As previously noted, the 1982 judgment adjudicated that the heirs of Tandy Martin were the owners of the Tandy Martin mineral tract. The appellants contend that the May 1982 judgment is not res judicata because that litigation concerned an unrelated coal lease or, alternatively, even if res judicata does apply, the judgment was never enforced and was consequently abandoned. If neither of the foregoing...

To continue reading

Request your trial
27 cases
  • Hager v. Allstate Insurance Company, No. 2007-CA-002599-MR (Ky. App. 10/16/2009)
    • United States
    • Kentucky Court of Appeals
    • 16 octobre 2009
    ...failure of a litigant to bring an alleged error to the trial court's attention is fatal to that argument on appeal." Baker v. Weinberg, 266 S.W.3d 827, 835 (Ky. App. 2008) (citing Hines v. Carr, 296 Ky. 78, 176 S.W.2d 99 (1943)). Consequently, having failed to illustrate how her case was pr......
  • Seals v. Amburgey, No. 2008-CA-002217-MR (Ky. App. 10/30/2009)
    • United States
    • Kentucky Court of Appeals
    • 30 octobre 2009
    ... ... Godby, 263 S.W.3d 598, 601 (Ky. App. 2008) (citing Steelvest, 807 S.W.2d at 480). Appellate courts review grants of summary judgment de novo. Baker v. Weinberg, 266 S.W.3d 827, ... 831 (Ky. App. 2008) (citing Lewis v. B & R Corp., 56 S.W.3d 432, 436 (Ky. App. 2001)) ...         The trial ... ...
  • Johnson v. Capitol Specialty Ins. Corp.
    • United States
    • Kentucky Court of Appeals
    • 22 juin 2018
    ...of the appellate court to search the record for pertinent evidence "not pointed out by the parties in their briefs." Baker v. Weinberg, 266 S.W.3d 827, 834 (Ky. App. 2008). We recognize that the hearing on August 25, 2016, at which this issue may have been argued before the trial court, was......
  • Gilland v. Dougherty, 2015–CA–000286–MR
    • United States
    • Kentucky Court of Appeals
    • 17 juin 2016
    ...release his claim to it[.]KRS 411.120 does not specify whether record owners must be joined in a quiet title action. Baker v. Weinberg, 266 S.W.3d 827, 831 (Ky.App.2008). However, the plaintiff's burden in a quiet title action to prove ownership and possession of the land cannot be satisfie......
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT