Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged
| Decision Date | 20 December 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 36742,36742 |
| Citation | 292 P.2d 998 |
| Parties | Gertie HOLT, Plaintiff in Error, v. SOUTHWEST ANTIOCH SAND UNIT, FIFTH ENLARGED, Defendant in Error. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. Generally a person who owns minerals in land has as incidental to his ownership the rights and privileges that are necessary for profitable production of such minerals.
2. The owner and his lessee of the oil, gas and other petroleum minerals has the right to use so much of the salt water produced from the premises as may be reasonably necessary for the production of said minerals by the method known as water flooding of the petroleum producing structure.
Appeal from the District Court of Garvin County, Oklahoma; Cicero I. Murray, Trial Judge.
Action by Gertie Holt, the surface owner, as plaintiff, against Southwest Antioch Gibson Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged, as defendant, for recovery of damages for taking and using salt water from plaintiff's lands for purpose of secondary recovery of oil. Defendants' demurrer to petition was sustained and cause ordered dismissed. Plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
W. D. Hart, Pauls Valley, Twyford, Smith & Crowe, Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.
Johnson, Gordon, Cook & Cotter, Oklahoma City, for defendant in error.
The plaintiff, Gertie Holt, filed this action against the defendant, Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged. After several amendments were made to the petition, the defendant demurred generally thereto, which said demurrer was sustained by the trial court. The plaintiff elected to stand upon her petition. Whereupon, the action was ordered dismissed and, from that judgment, plaintiff has perfected his appeal. The parties will be referred to as they appeared in the trial court.
The plaintiff was the owner of the surface of certain lands in Garvin County, Oklahoma. Prior to the organization of defendant and at all times thereafter, the oil gas and other petroleum minerals were owned by other parties. The defendant, an entity existing under the provisions of 52 O.S.1951 § 287.1 et seq., stood in the position of an operating lessee of said minerals. Because this case is presented for the purpose of determining the correctness of the order sustaining a demurrer thereto, the petition as finally amended is of prime importance.
Plaintiff alleged therein the ownership and possession of the surface of some 130 acres of land in Garvin County, Oklahoma, particularly described. She specifically alleged ownership of all salt water in and under said premises. It was further alleged that defendant was a corporation set up by order of the Corporation Commission for the purpose of increasing the production of oil and gas from said unit by a system of repressuring the same by forcing large quantities of salt water into and against the producing oil pool. Members of that unit included the three lessees each owning an oil and gas lease on a part of the property, which collectively included the entire acreage here involved.
The gist of plaintiff's asserted cause of action was alleged to be that the defendant, without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiff, converted a producing oil well on said premises into a salt-water producing well; that, to the salt water so produced, was added about the same amount from other sources and all of it was used for the repressuring process; that the water was used to produce oil from wells on other lands in the said unit, none of them being on plaintiff's premises; that defendant committed, thereby, a subsurface trespass and converted the said salt water to its own use and benefit.
It was further alleged that plaintiff elected to hold defendant liable for the mesne profits realized and to be realized by defendant in the use and conversion of said salt water; that, by reason of the use of said salt water, defendant had produced several additional barrels of oil and that plaintiff was entitled to an accounting of the profits so made.
The only foundation upon which a right of recovery in plaintiff could exist was that defendant was using salt water to which it was not entitled. Either of two conclusions would preclude recovery. If the salt water constituted a mineral which was owned by those having title to the oil, gas and other petroleum minerals, it would constitute no part of plaintiff's estate and she would have no right to complain of its removal. We need not further consider that phase of the question, since the other phase is determinative of the issues in the case before us. It is that, although the salt water was not a mineral and was owned by plaintiff, the surface owner, if the right to its use was, by express conveyance or by inference a part of the mineral estate bacause of its necessity in the...
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Roberts Ranch Co. v. Exxon Corp.
...of the clause," and that usually the free use clauses simply serve to remove any doubt on the subject. See also Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, 292 P.2d 998 (Okla.1955) (lessee has "as incidental to his ownership the rights and privileges that are necessary for profitable production of......
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...Utilities Production Corp. v. Carter Oil Co., 2 F.Supp. 81 (U.S.D.C.Okl.1933). As stated in Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, 292 P.2d 998 (Okl.1956) at page 1000: 'It would be difficult to conceive of a use of the water more essentially a part of the operation of mining and removing the......
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...are no express provisions in the instrument which negate such an implication. 10 More recently, in Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged, Okl., 292 P.2d 998, 998 (1956), we stated in our first syllabus "Generally a person who owns minerals in land has as incidental to his owne......
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...opinion suggests that a contrary result to its decision would obtain in Oklahoma under the holding of Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged, 292 P.2d 998 (Okla. 1955). In Gill v. McCollum, 19 Ill. App.3d 402, 311 N.E.2d 741 (1974), the Illinois Appellate Court found that under......
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...Allen v. Gouverneur Talc Co., 247 A.D.2d 681, 668 N.Y.S.2d 755 (1998); Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged, 1955 OK 368, 292 P.2d 998, 5 O.&G.R. 373; Harrison v. County of Stevens, 115 Wash.App. 126, 61 P.3d 1202, 1206, 158 O.&G.R. 361, rev. denied, 149 Wash.2d 1031, 78 P.3d......
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...876 (Tex. Civ. App.--Eastland 1958). [156] Cole v. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., 331 S.W.3d 30 (Tex. App.--Eastland 2010). [157] 1955 OK 368, 292 P.2d 998. Alabama appears to follow the Oklahoma approach. Gulf Oil Corp. v. Deese, 275 Ala. 178, 153 So.2d 614 (1963). Arkansas, in a somewhat confu......
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...Allen v. Gouverneur Talc Co., 247 A.D.2d 681, 668 N.Y.S.2d 755 (1998); Holt v. Southwest Antioch Sand Unit, Fifth Enlarged, 1955 OK 368, 292 P.2d 998, 5 O.&G.R. 373; Harrison v. County of Stevens, 115 Wash.App. 126, 61 P.3d 1202, 1206, 158 O.&G.R. 361, rev. denied, 149 Wash.2d 1031, 78 P.3d......