Cox Enterprises, Ltd. v. Phillips Petroleum Co.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1976
• Docket Number: No. 47256,47256
• Citation: 1976 OK 75,550 P.2d 1324
• Parties: COX ENTERPRISES, LTD., Appellant, v. PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY, a corporation, and OKC Pipeline, Inc., a corporation, Appellees.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 1324

550 P.2d 1324

COX ENTERPRISES, LTD., Appellant, v. PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY, a corporation, and OKC Pipeline, Inc., a corporation, Appellees.

No. 47256.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

June 8, 1976.

Leroy J. Patton, Oklahoma City, for appellant.

George L. Verity, Brown, Verity, Brown & Baker, Oklahoma City, for appellee, OKC Pipeline, Inc.

BARNES, Justice.

Appellant purchased property in Oklahoma County on September 27, 1971. Subsequently, Appellant discovered that an oil pipeline was buried across the middle of the property it had acquired. Upon investigation, Appellant found that Independent Pipe Line Company had buried the line in 1932 and that Appellee, OKC Pipeline, Inc., was presently using the line to transport oil.

Appellant, on March 21, 1973, filed the present action, setting forth three causes of action:

(1) An action against Phillips Petroleum Company, a corporation, which held an oil and gas lease upon part of the property in question, for excessive use of the property. (This cause of action is still pending and we are not concerned with it in this appeal.)

(2) An action against Appellee (OKC) for trespass based upon the fact that OKC was the present owner and user of the pipeline.

(3) An inverse condemnation action against Appellee (OKC).

Appellee answered denying Appellant's allegations and asked that it be granted summary judgment quieting its title in the pipeline easement. Appellee's contentions were: (1) That its predecessor in title to the pipeline in question appropriated a right-of-way and easement in the 1930's; (2) that Appellant was not the owner of the premises in question at the time of the appropriation and that the prior owner would be the only person entitled to bring an inverse condemnation proceeding; (3) that since Independent Pipe Line Company originally appropriated the right-of-way, it would be the only company who would be liable in an inverse condemnation proceeding.

The record shows that OKC's predecessor (Independent Pipe Line Company) complied with Title 52 O.S. § 58, when on March 24, 1932, it filed its acceptance of the provisions of the said article and a plat showing where the trunk lines were proposed to be constructed. On March 28, 1932, the Corporation Commission entered its Order No. 2055 finding that Independent Pipe Line Company was entitled to exercise the right of eminent domain in Oklahoma. It was not required at that time to file a plat of its proposed feeder lines unless directed to do so by the Corporation Commission. The record does not indicate that the Corporation Commission has ever directed it to do this. We agree with the Appellee that it and its predecessors in title have had the right of eminent domain over Appellant's property since complying with § 58, supra.

The Trial Court found:

'2. That under the provisions of 66 O.S.A. § 57 and Oklahoma Appellate Decisions, the exclusive remedy of any recovery would be in accord with said Statute by inverse condemnation, and that any such action would have to be brought by the owner of the real estate here in controversy at the time of the taking of the right-of-way now held and possessed by the above-named Defendant and Counter-Claimant.'

The general rule set forth in Syllabus 2 in Rogers v. Oklahoma City, 190 Okl. 78, 120 P.2d 997 (1942), is that the owner of the property at the time the pipeline is placed thereon is the only one who has a cause of action for damages in inverse condemnation:

'2. Where a city, having the power of eminent domain, has entered into actual, open and notorious possession of land necessary for its corporate purposes whether with or without the consent of the owner of such land, a subsequent vendee of the latter takes the land subject to the burden of the city, and the right of payment from the city, if the entry was unauthorized, belongs to the owner at the time the city took possession, unless such right has been specifically assigned or otherwise transferred to such subsequent purchaser.'

However, an exception to that rule is found in Consolidated Gas Service Co. v. Tyler, 178 Okl. 325, 63 P.2d 88 (1936), where this Court said:

'Plaintiff cites a number of cases holding in effect that where a corporation authorized to exercise...