Feathers v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc.

• Decision Date: 22 May 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-6192,96-6192
• Citation: 141 F.3d 264
• Parties: Roy FEATHERS, as administrator of the estate of Pelham Humphries, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHEVRON U.S.A., INC.; Amoco Production Company; Texaco, Inc.; and Mobil Oil Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 264

141 F.3d 264

40 Fed.R.Serv.3d 454

Roy FEATHERS, as administrator of the estate of Pelham Humphries, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHEVRON U.S.A., INC.; Amoco Production Company; Texaco Inc.; and Mobil Oil Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 96-6192.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued March 19, 1998.

Decided April 8, 1998.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied May 22, 1998.

Hubert D. Patty (argued and briefed), Maryville, TN, Roy Feathers, Johnson City, TN, for Roy Feathers.

Allan J. Wade (briefed), Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, Memphis, TN, Margaret M. McKay, Houston, TX, for Chevron U.S.A. Inc.

William C. Bovender, Hunter, Smith & Davis, Kingsport, TN, Cynthia K. Timms (argued and briefed), Locke, Purnell, Rain & Harrell, Dallas, TX, for Amoco Production Co.

Howard E. Jarvis, Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, Knoxville, TN, Reginald R. Smith (briefed), Sashe D. Dimitroff (briefed), King and Spaulding, Houston, TX, for Texaco Inc.

Robert D. Van de Vuurst (briefed), Ronald S. Range, Jr., Jennifer P. Keller (briefed), Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, Johnson City, TN, for Mobil Oil Corp.

Before: BOGGS, NORRIS, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

In this case, a postscript to the now-fabled "Humphries heirs" lawsuits, we are called upon to resolve two questions: first, whether the district court properly dismissed plaintiff Roy Feathers's claims based on Feathers's asserted title to the land comprising the Spindletop Oil Field in Jefferson County, Texas; and second, whether the district court was within the scope of its discretion in enjoining the filing of any future "Humphries heirs" cases in the Eastern District of Tennessee without the prior permission of a judge of the district court. We answer both questions in the affirmative.

I

The facts necessary to understand the district court's ruling dismissing Feathers's complaint have been recited so frequently, and by so many courts, that we find it sufficient merely to summarize here. In 1901, Captain Anthony Lucas and his team of wildcatters struck oil on a piece of property that came to be known as the Spindletop Oil Field. This find, on what is generally regarded as one of the richest oil deposits in the world, spawned litigation over the ownership of the oil field as early as 1902. See Halliburton v. Martin, 28 Tex.Civ.App. 127, 66 S.W. 675 (1902). The gist of this litigation, which has continued unabated for more than 90 years, is that the original owner of the property--Pelham Humphries, who acquired the land in 1835--never transferred the property, and therefore that the property (including royalties associated with its attendant mineral rights) belongs to Humphries's heirs at law.

According to the scores of purported "Humphries heirs" who have filed lawsuits asserting an interest in the Spindletop Oil Field, the various oil companies who currently claim title to the land comprising the oil field are beneficiaries of a fraud perpetrated in the mid-nineteenth century. As the story goes, after Pelham Humphries died intestate, someone changed the name on the original Mexican property deed from "Pelham" to "William." See Humphries v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 393 F.2d 69, 71 (5th Cir.1968). "William" Humphries is then said to have conveyed the property to a man named William Inglish in a transaction backdated to 1836, though another version of the story holds that someone purporting to be Pelham Humphries (who did not die until about 1869) fraudulently sold the property to David Snively in 1857. Whichever version is correct, by 1883 the property was possessed in its entirety by a rancher named W.P.H. McFaddin, who "enclosed the entire league [of land] with a substantial cattle-proof fence" in 1884. See Jones v. McFaddin, 382 S.W.2d 277, 278 (Tex.Civ.App.--Texarkana 1964, writ dism'd w.o.j.), appeal dism'd, 382 U.S. 15, 86 S.Ct. 56, 15 L.Ed.2d 11 (1965).

The decades of Texas state-court litigation over ownership of the oil field ended in 1964, when a Texas appellate court held that the heirs and assigns of W.P.H. McFaddin had title to the oil field by adverse possession, irrespective of any purported fraudulent title alteration that may have occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century. See Jones, 382 S.W.2d at 280. As that court noted, "W.P.H. McFaddin, and those holding under him from the year 1883 down to the filing of this suit, has an unbroken, continuous, peaceful and adverse possession of all the Humphries league of land. This amounted to about 75 years adverse possession at the time of the trial of this lawsuit." Id. at 278.

Rejecting the claims asserted in a parallel line of "Humphries heirs" cases that proceeded in federal court, the Fifth Circuit agreed with the Texas state courts and held in a trio of 1968 cases that, because W.P.H. McFaddin acquired title based on adverse possession or related limitations principles, the Humphries heirs had no rights or interest in the oil field. See Green v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 393 F.2d 67 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 977, 89 S.Ct. 445, 21 L.Ed.2d 438 (1968); Beasley v. McFaddin, 393 F.2d 68 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 842, 89 S.Ct. 120, 21 L.Ed.2d 111 (1968); Humphries v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., 393 F.2d 69 (5th Cir.1968). The Fifth Circuit concluded its trilogy of 1968 decisions with a statement that is somewhat ironic in view of the numerous "Humphries heirs" cases that have been filed since: "The Pelham Humphries litigation is over and the Humphries heirs have no title in the league of land." Humphries, 393 F.2d at 75. While purported Humphries heirs have continued to file lawsuits even after the Fifth Circuit's stern admonition, they have not been successful; on the contrary, since the famous 1968 trilogy of Fifth Circuit decisions, the general view--including the view of this court--has been that "Humphries heirs" claims are barred by the doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata. See In re Peregoy, 885 F.2d 349, 352 (6th Cir.1989); Peregoy v. Amoco Production Co., 742 F.Supp. 372, 375-76 (E.D.Tex.1990), aff'd, 929 F.2d 196 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 864, 112 S.Ct. 188, 116 L.Ed.2d 149 (1991).

II

After persuading a Tennessee state probate court to name him administrator of the estate of Pelham Humphries, Roy Feathers filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in October 1995. Like the previous "Humphries heirs" plaintiffs, Feathers requested relief under a variety of legal theories on the asserted ground that, when Pelham Humphries died intestate, he still owned the land at issue; and that the defendant oil companies' interest in the land was invalid because it was derived from the interest of W.P.H. McFaddin, who in turn acquired the land through the purported fraudulent transfers described above. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the defendants each moved to dismiss Feathers's complaint on grounds of res judicata and collateral estoppel. On April 17, 1996, the district court granted the motions and dismissed the case.

Feathers did not file a notice of appeal from the district court's order within 30 days as required by Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(1), nor did he file a Fed.R.Civ.P. 59 motion for reconsideration within the ten days allowed by that rule. However, on May 17, 1996, Feathers did file a paper in the district court originally entitled "Motion for New Trial"; Feathers struck out the original caption and inserted a new handwritten caption reading "Motion to Reconsider." To this motion, Feathers attached an affidavit from a British genealogist, who discussed in some detail the alleged nineteenth-century instances of fraud described above. Feathers also quoted from a purported letter written by the Texas Land Commissioner, discussing apparent irregularities in the deed records relating to the land comprising the Spindletop Oil Field. ¹ In an order dated August 1, 1996, the district court denied the motion as untimely, but also noted that "Feathers did not provide the Court with any truly new information distinguishing this claim from his earlier claim or the myriad of claims made by other putative Humphries heirs." The district court further ordered "that the Clerk of the Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee is enjoined from accepting for filing any lawsuit by any party claiming as an heir of Pelham Humphries and involving any claim to the land known as the Humphries Survey, the Humphries League, or the Spindletop Oil Field, unless there is first a motion for leave to file granted by a sitting judge in the Eastern District of Tennessee."

Feathers filed a notice of appeal on August 30, 1996, specifically designating the April 17 order of dismissal as the subject of appeal. With the notice of appeal, Feathers filed a new affidavit from the British genealogist whose initial affidavit was submitted with Feathers's Rule 59 motion. The defendants moved to dismiss the appeal as untimely, arguing that the late-filed Rule 59 motion did not toll the 30-day period for filing a notice of appeal from the April 17 order of dismissal. A panel of this court granted the defendants' motions in part, holding that Feathers was entitled to appeal the district court's denial of his "motion to reconsider," but was not entitled to appeal the underlying dismissal. See Feathers v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 141 F.3d 264 (6th Cir.1997).

III

Feathers's appeal questions the propriety both of the district court's denial of Feathers's Rule 59 motion and of the district court's injunction limiting the ability of future litigants to file "Humphries heirs" claims without prior court permission. We consider each issue in turn.

A

The district court's August 1, 1996, order raises two questions: first, whether Feathers's "motion to reconsider" was properly dismissed as a Rule 59 motion on timeliness grounds; and second, whether, if construed as a ...