Gillespie v. Fulton Oil & Gas Co.
| Decision Date | 16 February 1910 |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
| Parties | GILLESPIE v. FULTON OIL & GAS CO. et al. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Circuit Court, Crawford County; E. E. Newlin, Judge.
Bill by E. N. Gillespie, as trustee, against the Fulton Oil & Gas Company and others. Decree for complainant, and defendants appeal. Modified and affirmed.
Parker & Eagleton, George W. Jones, and Jay A. Hindman, for appellants.
Callahan, Jones & Lowe, Golden, Scholfield & Scholfield, and Parker & Crowley, for appellee.
This was a bill in chancery, filed in the circuit court of Crawford county by E. N. Gillespie against the Fulton Oil & Gas Company, S. C. Bowman, T. N. Rogers, and Walter Hennig, for an injunction, an accounting, and other relief. The litigation arose out of two oil and gas leases executed by Bowman upon 50 acres of land owned by him, located in Crawford county; one lease being made to T. E. Pierce and assigned to Gillespie, and the other to T. N. Rogers. Answers and replications were filed, and upon a hearing a decree was entered dismissing the bill for want of equity, which decree was affirmed by the Appellate Court for the Fourth District; but upon appeal to this court the decree of the circuit court and the judgment of the Appellate Court were reversed, and the case was remanded to the circuit court, ‘with directions to enter a decree in accordance with the prayer of the bill.’ Upon the case being reinstated in the circuit court, a second decree was entered, from which an appeal was prosecuted to this court; and that decree was reversed upon the ground that it was broader in its scope than was authorized by the averments of the bill and the mandate of this court, and the cause was remanded to the circuit court, with directions to re-enter the decree, but to omit therefrom all reference to the homestead estate of Bowman in the premises mentioned in the decree, and to limit the injunction prayed for in the bill to the removal from the premises of such personalproperty as would injure the wells located upon the property, and a new date for the making of the detailed statement of oil and gas which had been produced upon the premises was directed to be fixed. A full statement of the facts will be found in the opinions of this court filed in the cases of Gillespie v. Fulton Oil & Gas Co., 236 Ill. 188, 86 N. E. 219, and Gillespie v. Fulton Oil & Gas Co., 239 Ill. 326, 88 N. E. 192. The case was again reinstated in the circuit court, whereupon the complainant filed, by leave of court, what was designated as a ‘supplemental bill,’ which reviewed at length the history of the litigation in the circuit court, the Appellate Court, and this court, and set up the final order of this court in the last appeal, and asked that a decree be entered in accordance with such order, and that the defendants be required to answer said supplemental bill.
The defendants, with the exception of Rogers, who was defaulted, answered the supplemental bill, and Bowman filed a crossbill. The premises, it is claimed, at the time the leases were executed, were the homestead of Bowman. In the lease to Pierce, which was executed prior to thelease to Rogers, Bowman alone signed the lease, his wife not joining therein, and he did not release his homestead estate in said premises. In the original answers to the bill the homestead estate of Bowman in the premises was attempted to be set up for the purpose of avoiding the lease to Pierce, and upon the first appeal it was held by this court Bowman's homestead estate, at least for the purpose of that appeal, was waived by the case coming to this court through the Appellate Court, and that Bowman and the other defendants had not sufficiently set up in their answers Bowman's homestead estate, and the second decree was entered upon the pleadings as they stood at the time the first decree was entered. In the answers filed to the supplemental bill the history of the litigation was admitted to be correctly set out in the supplemental bill, and it was averred that all personal property placed upon the premises by the defendants could be removed without injury to the wells upon the premises, with the exception of the casings in the wells, and in the answers of all the defendants, and in the cross-bill of Bowman, the homestead estate of Bowman in the premises was fully set up, and was relied upon as a defense to the suit. The court sustained exceptions to all the answers so far as they attempted to set up Bowman's homestead estate in said premises for the purpose of avoiding the lease to Pierce, and the cross-bill of Bowman was stricken from the files, and a decree was re-entered, omitting therefrom all reference to Bowman's homestead estate in the premises, and fixing a new date for the making of the detailed statement of oil and gas produced upon the premises, and limiting the injunction against the removal by the defendants of the personal property placed by them upon the premises to the casings in the wells upon the premises, but directing them, as before, to ‘at once deliver up to the said James M. Fast, as such receiver, the above-described property, real, personal, and mixed, including the leasehold estate, together with all the oil wells, tanks, pipe lines, shackle rods, books, and papers, with all the well records and records of shots, with all hereditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging or in any wise appertaining.’ From that decree an appeal has been prosecuted to this court.
The first contention of the appellants is that the circuit court erred in sustaining exceptions to the answer of the defendants and in striking the cross-bill of S. C. Bowman from the files. The general rule is that where a decree in chancery is reversed by this court, and the cause is remanded to the trial court, with directions to enter a decree in accordance with the views expressed in the opinion, or express direction is given by this court to the trial court as to the decree that is to be entered by that court upon the reinstatement of the cause in...
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