Guth v. Texas Co., 8670.
| Decision Date | 07 December 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 8670.,8670. |
| Citation | 145 F.2d 820 |
| Parties | GUTH v. TEXAS CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Albert H. Fry, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Henry I. Green and Enos L. Phillips, both of Urbana, Ill., Walter E. Will, of Mattoon, Ill., and Harold Smith, of Chicago, Ill., for appellee.
Before EVANS, MAJOR, and MINTON, Circuit Judges.
The plaintiff-appellant originally filed suit against the defendant-appellee in the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois, but the case was removed by the defendant to the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on the ground of diversity of citizenship.
In the District Court, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint, which the defendant moved to dismiss. In the alternative, the defendant asked that certain allegations of the amended complaint, which it claimed were mere conclusions of the pleader, either be stricken or that the plaintiff be required to make them more definite. The defendant asked, in any event, for a bill of particulars. The court sustained the motion to dismiss and entered judgment dismissing the complaint and directing that the plaintiff take nothing by his suit. From this judgment the plaintiff has appealed.
The question presented then is whether the present complaint alleges facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action or merely conclusions of the pleader. The amended complaint alleges that the plaintiff is the lawful owner of 1/32 of the oil, gas, gasoline, casinghead gas, and petroleum distillates in, on, or under certain described lands in Illinois, and that this ownership was well known to the defendant. The complaint alleges that the defendant has drilled and sunk on the said lands, certain wells for oil, gas, gasoline, casinghead gas, and petroleum distillates, pursuant to contracts made with the owner of the lands, and that the defendant has operated these wells in such a grossly inefficient and wasteful manner and by such improper methods that oil and gas have been negligently wasted to the plaintiff's damage. The plaintiff further charges "that of the gas, gasoline and petroleum distillates so produced and not accounted for or paid for, a large volume was wasted, burned and destroyed * * *."
The plaintiff in his original brief says that his complaint is based on negligence, and yet in his reply brief he says that the gravamen of his case is not negligence but the defendant's intentional destruction or burning of the plaintiff's property without payment. While the plaintiff has presented no model of pleading or argument, we think the allegations of fact, charging the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Kirke v. Texas Co.
...plaintiff contends that the complaint herein is "almost identical" to the complaint considered and upheld by this court in Guth v. Texas Co., 7 Cir., 145 F.2d 820, and Guth v. Texas Co., 7 Cir., 155 F.2d 563. Counsel for plaintiff herein was counsel for plaintiff Guth in that case. There th......
-
Guth v. Texas Co., 9021.
...stated no cause for relief against the defendant as it was not alleged that the defendant had burned and wasted the oil and gas. 7 Cir., 145 F.2d 820. As the case went back to the District Court, we had held that the plaintiff had stated a cause for relief on the ground of negligence. The c......
-
Guth v. Texas Co.
...of defendant, it was dismissed for want of sufficiency, from which order of dismissal plaintiff appealed. The Circuit Court of Appeals 145 F.2d 820, 822, in remanding the cause held that "the complaint stated a cause of action for negligence, and the motion to dismiss should have been overr......
-
Guth v. Texas Co., 9313.
...22, 1947. See 68 S.Ct. 268. MINTON, Circuit Judge. This is the third appeal of this case. It was here twice before on the pleadings, 7 Cir., 145 F.2d 820; 7 Cir., 155 F.2d 563. When the case was last before us, we held that on the third amended complaint the plaintiff had alleged facts suff......