Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation v. Holmes, DELHI-TAYLOR
| Decision Date | 22 February 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. A-8040,DELHI-TAYLOR,A-8040 |
| Citation | 162 Tex. 39,344 S.W.2d 420 |
| Parties | OIL CORPORATION et al., Petitioner, v. Christian R. HOLMES et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Charles E. Thompson, McAllen, Turner, White, Atwood, Meer & Francis, and C. Sidney McClain, Dallas, Jackson, Walker, Winstead, Cantwell & Miller, Dallas, F. E. Butler, McAllen, for petitioner.
Longoria, Evins & Snedeker, Edinburg, Cox, Patterson, Freeland & Horger, McAllen, Jack Ware & William Darden, Corpus Christi, William E. York & Charles B. Swanner, McAllen, Hart & Hart, Austin, for respondent.
This is a companion case to No. A-7976 and No. A-7977, both styled Gregg v. Delhi-Taylor Corporation et al., Tex., 344 S.W.2d 419 and 411. This case was orally argued and briefed with those cases in this Court.
This suit was brought and tried in Hidalgo County. Holmes et al. owned or claimed the mineral leasehold estate on a tract 30 feet wide which was bounded by lands of Delhi-Taylor et al. Holmes' well had been completed in the Hansen Sand. It was alleged that Holmes was about to employ the sand fracturing technique in such a manner as to cause cracks or veins to extend outside his land with the result that gas from the mineral estates of Delhi-Taylor et al. would be produced by Holmes. Holmes filed a plea to the jurisdiction of the court alleging primary exclusive jurisdiction in the Texas Railroad Commission to first determine the matter. That plea was overruled by the trial court and a temporary injunction was issued after a hearing. The Court of Civil Appeals at San Antonio reversed that judgment, one justice dissenting. 337 S.W.2d 479. It dissolved the temporary injunction. We here reverse the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals and affirm that of the trial court.
Unlike the Gregg cases, testimony was heard in this case. That testimony, however, does not distinguish this case from the Gregg cases. The evidence showed that Holmes proposed to use 20,000 gallons of fluid and 40,000 pounds of sand under great hydraulic pressure to fracture this producing rock or sand. A witness for Delhi-Taylor testified that when the ruptures occurred in the formation, pressure would be continued in order to carry the fluid and sand mixture into the fracture and to extend it. After the treatment had been completed, sand would remain in the fractures so as to prop them up. He testified that such a fracture was analogous to a pipeline leading to the well bore since it had great capacity to transmit gas and fluid.
When the Holmes well was completed, its potential test showed a calculated open-flow potential of 5,200,000 cubic feet of gas per...
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...The same principle was applied in Gregg v. Delhi-Taylor Oil Corp., 162 Tex. 38, 344 S.W.2d 419 (1961), and in Delhi-Taylor Oil Corp. v. Holmes, 162 Tex. 39, 344 S.W.2d 420 (1961). In my judgment, the examples are indistinguishable from the present case. The geologic changes that the defenda......
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