Blue v. Charles F. Hayes & Associates, Inc.

• Decision Date: 04 November 1968
• Docket Number: No. 45025,45025
• Citation: 215 So.2d 426
• Parties: Harmon S. BLUE v. CHARLES F. HAYES & ASSOCIATES, INC.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 426

215 So.2d 426

Harmon S. BLUE v. CHARLES F. HAYES & ASSOCIATES, INC.

No. 45025.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 4, 1968.

Henry S. Davis, Jr., A. S. Scott, Jr., Laurel, for appellant.

Boyd, Holifield & Harper, Laurel, for appellee.

RODGERS, Justice:

The appellant filed this suit in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial District of Jones County, Mississippi against Chas. F. Hayes & Associates, Inc., a domestic corporation, for property damages. The trial judge sustained the demurrer to the declaration, and upon refusal of the plaintiff to amend his declaration, the Circuit Court entered a final judgment in favor of the defendants.

The declaration alleges that the plaintiff is the owner of certain described lands lying in the Pool Creek Oil Field and that the defendant is the owner of the oil and minerals lying under this real property. It admits that the plaintiff and his wife gave a lease to the defendant in which it was agreed that the consideration therein mentioned 'covers all damages that have been occasioned by the drilling, or which might occur, to 5.04 acres described in this lease.'

The declaration alleges that the defendant dug an oil well known as Blue #1 on the property, and in so doing 'the defendants caused a slush pit to be constructed and used adjacent to that well * * *. (T)he slush pit was full to the brim when defendants abandoned Blue #1 and started on Blue #2. When we say full, we mean by that: salt water and other contaminating matter connected with the oil well drilling industry. Drilling muds, acids, refuse, lye, lime and other alkalines. And organic matter with its pungent and offensive odors, composed of carbons, oxygen and hydrogens all massed together.'

The declaration alleges also that this pit embankment broke, permitting this harmful matter to 'flow unimpeded over the large part of lands owned in the adjoing (sic) forty. Lands owned by plaintiff in BW 1/4 (sic) of SE 1/4. A six acre pond was engulfed and the sediment from defendants (sic) prosperous oil wells were there placed on the bed of this pond.'

The appellant also alleged in his declaration that his pasture was covered so that 'they can't walk in their pasture without stepping into piles of accumulated drilling oils and muds. This is more than a nuisance. It is an incovenience and deprivation of plaintiff's property rights without compensation. The plaintiffs (sic) has been annoyed and almost made sick as a consequence of the trespass described above.'

The declaration also contends that 'the dam broke and the contents of the pit cascaded over the lands of plaintiff. * * * Lands that defendants had no right at all to invade or contaminate. We do not claim negligence. We claim an invasion.'

The sole issue in this case is whether or not the appellant alleged a cause of action in his declaration. We are of the opinion that the appellant did state a cause of action and that the demurrer should have been overruled.

It has been said by the textwriter in 4 Summers, Oil and Gas section 655 (1962) that:

'Where the action by a surface owner is against the oil and gas operator of neighboring lands, the liability of the operator may be founded upon one of several theories. Such liability may be based upon nuisance, the dangerous agency doctrine of Rylands v. Fletcher ((1868) L.R. 3 H.L. 330), statutes making the escape of salt water and other refuse from oil and gas drilling operations over the surface of the land of others or into natural streams a penal offense and a public nuisance, and negligence.'

This textwriter also goes on to point out that the operators of oil wells have contended that the adjacent landowners have no legal rights. This contention is based upon the theory that each landowner is privileged to use his land for development of natural resources as long as he does so in a careful manner, and that the injuries suffered by adjacent owners are damnum absque injuria. The text-writer says that such contention is squarely contrary to the fundamental principle of law of property and land, because each landowner is privileged to use his land but not without regard to the rights of other landowners and the rights of the public. When one makes such a use of his own land so as to unreasonably interfere with the rights of his neighbors in the exercise of their privileges or use of their lands, and when appreciable or actual damage is shown, he should be made to pay damages or cease such use.

It has been generally recognized, not only in this state, but as the general rule of law, that the owner and operator of oil and gas wells are liable for injuries to land or property of another caused by oil, salt water, or the like, flowing from wells into such lands or into a stream which runs along or through the land. The lessee in an oil and gas lease has the right to use as much of the surface of the land embraced in his lease as is reasonably necessary for the operation of his oil well. This liability to the owner of the land for injuries to his property is limited to the flowing of oil, salt water or the like from the well or pits into parts of land not essential to the operation of the well. Annot., 19 A.L.R.2d 1025 (1951). In the instant case the appellant has sued for trespass upon his property other than that under the lease...