Buvens v. Robison

• Decision Date: 25 June 1928
• Docket Number: (No. 4892.)<SMALL><SUP>*</SUP></SMALL&gt
• Citation: 8 S.W.2d 664
• Parties: BUVENS v. ROBISON, Commissioner of General Land Office, et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

8 S.W.2d 664

BUVENS v. ROBISON, Commissioner of General Land Office, et al.

(No. 4892.)^*

Supreme Court of Texas.

June 25, 1928.

Original proceeding by P. L. Buvens for mandamus directed to J. T. Robison, Commissioner of the General Land Office, and others, to require respondent named to issue a permit for prospecting for oil and gas on state school lands, in which one Holland, as corespondent, also sought mandamus. Writs denied.

Ward & Ward, of Houston, for relator.

R. L. Batts and J. T. Robison, both of Austin, for respondent.

Smith & Gibson and E. F. Smith, all of Austin, and Phillips, Townsend & Phillips and Nelson Phillips, all of Dallas, for corespondents Transcontinental Oil Co. and Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Co.

Black & Graves and Chas. L. Black, all of Austin, for corespondent Holland.

Hill, Neill & Hill, of San Angelo, for corespondent Yates.

Claude Pollard, Atty. Gen., C. W. Truehart, Asst. Atty. Gen., F. A. Williams, of Galveston, Underwood, Johnson, Dooley & Simpson, of Amarillo, and T. L. Foster, J. W. Timmins, T. R. Freeman, S. W. Marshall, and John L. Young, all of Dallas, amici curiæ.

PIERSON, J.

This is an original proceeding for mandamus in which relator, P. L. Buvens, seeks to have J. T. Robison, commissioner of the general land office, issue a permit to him under the Permit and Lease Act of 1917 (Acts 1917, c. 83) to prospect for oil and gas on that certain "area of 880 acres, being the north 880 acres out of that certain tract or parcel of land patented by the state of Texas to I. G. Yates," same being a part of a 2,486-acre tract in Pecos county, Tex., same being further described and identified in relator's petition.

This land was awarded and sold to corespondent I. G. Yates on the 4th day of June, 1921. It was classified as "mineral," and was sold with a reservation of the mineral rights to the state of Texas. On December 28, 1923, I. G. Yates, under authority of the Relinquishment Act (Acts 1919, 2d Called Sess. c. 81), executed an oil and gas lease to corespondent Transcontinental Oil Company.

The commissioner of the general land office rejected relator's application for a permit and lease on said area, on the ground that said land was not subject to permit because the Permit and Lease Act of 1917 had been repealed and superseded by the Relinquishment Act of 1919.

Corespondent I. G. Yates, in his answer to relator's petition herein, alleges that under said lease oil had been discovered and developed on said tract of land in large quantities; that relator is not entitled to be permitted to maintain this suit for mandamus, for the reason that on November 30, 1926, the state of Texas, through the Attorney General, had filed suit in the Fifty-Third district court of Travis county, Tex., against him and the Transcontinental Oil Company, the Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company, the Peerless Oil & Gas Company, and Brown Bros., alleging that the Relinquishment Act of 1919 was unconstitutional and void, and that corespondent Yates and his lessees had no legal rights to the oil and gas in said land.

It appears from the pleadings of the parties that H. O. Holland also had filed an application for a permit to prospect for oil and gas on the same area involved in this case. He was made a party to the suit as a corespondent, and in his answer is seeking affirmative relief, and prays that a mandamus be issued requiring respondent Robison to issue to him a permit on said land.

The merits of the entire case depend upon the constitutionality of the so-called Relinquishment Act of 1919. In an opinion delivered in the case of Greene v. Robison et al., 8 S.W.(2d) 655, this day delivered, this court upheld in all essential respects the constitutionality and validity of said act.

It appearing that the subject-matter of this suit is also in litigation in the district court of Travis...