Haught Family Tr. v. Williamson
Decision Date | 20 April 2020 |
Docket Number | No. 19-0368,19-0368 |
Parties | Haught Family Trust, Petitioner Below, Petitioner v. Anna Louise Williamson, Daniel Owen Williamson, and Laura Williamson Groves, Respondents Below, Respondents |
Court | Supreme Court of West Virginia |
Petitioner Haught Family Trust, by counsel Philip A. Reale II, appeals the Circuit Court of Ritchie County's March 18, 2019, order granting summary judgment to Respondents Anna Louise Williamson, Daniel Owen Williamson, and Laura Williamson Groves. Respondents, by counsel Ethan Vessels, filed a response.
The Court has considered the parties' briefs and record on appeal. The facts and legal arguments are adequately presented, and the decisional process would not be significantly aided by oral argument. Upon consideration of the standard of review, the briefs, and the record presented, the Court finds no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error. For these reasons, a memorandum decision is appropriate under Rule 21 of the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
Frank O. Williamson died prior to May 4, 1982, leaving Mary M. Williamson as the surviving joint tenant of the subject tract of realty that is the subject of this appeal.1 Mary M. Williamson died prior to June 29, 1997, and devised the tract to Respondents Anna Louise Williamson, Daniel Owen Williamson, and Laura Williamson Groves. Petitioner Haught Family Trust purchased a purported mineral estate for the tract at issue in 1997 for $650 in a sale of delinquent tax liens. Following that sale, a quitclaim deed dated June 28, 1999, was recorded with the County Clerk of Ritchie County. That deed describes the real estate as follows: "½ interest in the oil, gas and minerals within and underlying 76 acres and 40 poles, situate on Hushers Run, in Clay District, Ritchie County, West Virginia."
Petitioner sued to quiet title, claiming one-half of the mineral estate of the subject 76-acre property in Ritchie County. The parties disagree as to the meaning of an oil and gas reservation ina 1907 deed in the chain of title. They agree as to the title history, but not as to the meaning of the reservation contained in that deed. The relevant portion of that deed provides as follows:
The parties of the first part except and reserve to the said Robert J. Reed, his heirs and assigns forever, one half of all the royalty of oil (which royalty shall not be less than the usual one-eighth), and one half of the proceeds of all gas which may be produced from said tract of land . . . .
(Emphasis added).
In the underlying case, the circuit court found that the 1907 reservation's inclusion of the additional words "all the gas which may be produced from said tract of land" proves that the intent of the parties was to reserve only the royalty - not the gas in place. "This intention accordingly applies to both the sale of the gas and oil, as the intention was to reserve only the royalty—i.e., the right to payments from the eventual sale of product, as opposed to the reservation of the gas or oil in place." The circuit court denied petitioner's motion for summary judgment and grantedrespondents' motion for summary judgment by order entered on March 18, 2019. Petitioner appeals from that order.
Andrews, 241 W. Va. at 811, 828 S.E.2d at 873.
On appeal, petitioner asserts a single assignment of error: The circuit court erred in finding, as a matter of law, that the language of the reservation of oil and gas in the 1907 deed at issue was only a royalty interest and not a real property interest in the oil and gas in place despite overwhelming evidence that the parties to the deed did, in fact, intend for the reservation to be a real property interest in the oil and gas in place.
In arguing that the 1907 deed was a reservation of a real property interest in the oil and gas in place, petitioner contends that the circuit court failed to apply this Court's case law and failed to interpret the reservation applying the law in effect at the time the deed and reservation were created in 1907. Petitioner correctly asserts that a deed is to be construed as of the time of its making. Syl. Pt. 2, Oresta v. Romano Bros., Inc., 137 W. Va. 633, 73 S.E.2d 622 (1952). Petitioner points to this Court's opinion in Toothman v. Courtney, 62 W. Va. 167, 58 S.E. 915 (1907), which held that "[i]n the exposition of deeds the construction must be upon the view and comparison of the whole instrument, and with an endeavor to give every part of it meaning and effect." Id. at 172, 58 S.E. at 917. Petitioner argues that due to the close proximity of the Toothman opinion and the drafting of the 1907 deed, this Court is given a "virtual real-time analysis of how this matter would have been decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court [of Appeals] in 1907 and how it ultimately should be decided by this Honorable Court at present."
Petitioner further asserts that under current West Virginia law, the deed is ambiguous and this Court should consider extrinsic evidence to carry into effect the clear intent of the parties, which, it contends, was to reserve one-half of the oil and gas in place. It argues that there is a clear disagreement as to the meaning of the reservation so it is ambiguous. In addition to distinguishing the instant case from Davis, petitioner cites the syllabus of Paxton for the proposition that "[w]here there is ambiguity in a deed, or where it admits of two constructions, that one will be adopted which is most favorable to the grantee." Syl. Pt 6, Paxton, 80 W. Va. at 187, 94 S.E. at 472. As this Court stated in Davis, "[t]he rule enunciated in Paxton . . . is but a rule of construction and the function of the Court in any situation such as that presented by the present case is to ascertain the true intent of the parties as expressed by them in the deed, lease or other written instrument under consideration." 148 W.Va. at 88-89, 133 S.E.2d at 81 (emphasis added).
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