Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. McLean

• Decision Date: 10 February 1926
• Docket Number: (No. 745-4340.)
• Citation: 280 S.W. 557
• Parties: HUMBLE OIL & REFINING CO. v. McLEAN.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

280 S.W. 557

HUMBLE OIL & REFINING CO. v. McLEAN.

(No. 745-4340.)

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section A.

February 10, 1926.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of Ninth Supreme Judicial District.

Suit by Marrs McLean against the Humble Oil & Refining Company. Judgment for plaintiff was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals (268 S. W. 179), and defendant brings error. Reversed and remanded.

E. E. Townes and Jno. C. Townes, Jr., both of Houston, C. W. Howth and E. L. Nall, both of Beaumont, and G. P. Dougherty, of Houston, for plaintiff in error.

W. D. Gordon and E. E. Easterling, both of Beaumont, for defendant in error.

HARVEY, P. J.

This is a suit for damages, predicated upon an alleged slander of title, brought by defendant in error, Marrs McLean, against the plaintiff in error, the Humble Oil & Refining Company. The trial court rendered judgment for defendant in error for the sum of $19,850.50, from which judgment the plaintiff in error appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals, which court affirmed such judgment. 268 S. W. 179. The case is now before us on writ of error.

McLean and one W. D. Gordon jointly owned, in equal shares, a certain mineral lease of a tract of 25 acres of land in Liberty county. Bates, an agent of the defendant in error, which we shall designate as the Humble Company, conducted negotiations with Gordon for the purchase of said lease for the said company. McLean was in Louisiana during this time. There is evidence to the effect that during the negotiations Gordon made statements to Bates from which Bates could reasonably have inferred that McLean had written him (Gordon) a letter offering to sell his interest in the lease to Bates for the price which was ultimately agreed upon by Gordon and Bates for Gordon's interest, and further that Gordon was authorized by McLean to communicate such offer to Bates and to receive Bates' acceptance thereof. That acting upon such statements Bates consented to buy the lease for the price named, and caused to be prepared a written assignment of the lease to the Humble Company to be executed by Gordon and McLean. Gordon duly executed this assignment at Wichita Falls, Tex., where these negotiations were conducted, and received from Bates the price of his one-half interest in the lease. A few days afterwards, the instrument was presented by Bates to McLean for execution by him. Meantime, it had come to light that a producing well had been brought in near this tract of land, and McLean refused to execute such instrument and to receive the price that Gordon and Bates had agreed upon, but demanded a greater price, which Bates refused to pay. Bates communicated to Farish, one of the managing officers of the Humble Company, what was said and done in the negotiations that occurred between himself and Gordon. A short time later, McLean opened negotiations with the Gulf Production Company, which resulted in the latter company agreeing to purchase McLean's half interest in the lease, for which it agreed to pay McLean a bonus of $750 per acre and allow him to retain an overriding royalty of 3/28 of the oil produced from the land, over and above the royalty rights of the landowner and another in the land. Later in the same day, to wit, June 5, 1920, the said Farish, acting in the name and behalf of the Humble Company, after consulting with Sterling, the president of the said company, and Townes, the general attorney therefor, wrote and caused to be delivered to the Gulf Production Company a letter notifying such company that the Humble Company had purchased the interest of McLean in the lease in question. As a result of this letter, the Gulf Production Company refused to proceed further in its negotiations with McLean. A few days later it developed that the land was not oil bearing, and in consequence the lease became of little or no value. Thereafter McLean brought this suit for damages alleged to have been sustained by him in losing a sale of said lease to the Gulf Production Company, on account of said letter written by Farish for the Humble Company.

The case was tried in the court below upon special issues submitted to the jury, who returned answers thereto in favor of McLean; and judgment was rendered accordingly.

In addition to the special issues submitted by the court to the jury, the court, by way of preface to the special issues, also submitted a lengthy charge instructing the jury as to the law pertaining to different phases of the case. The matters contained in this charge are not such explanations and definitions of legal terms as were necessary to enable the jury to properly pass upon and render a verdict on the special issues submitted to them. The Humble Company duly objected to the submission of such charge on the following ground:

"Because the charge of the court as contained in pages 1 and 2 is a general charge, and is uncalled for and unnecessary and erroneous, and should not be given in view of the fact that the cause is submitted to the jury on special issues."

This objection was overruled by the court.

The defendant in error contends here, in effect, that the above objection is insufficient to entitle it to consideration, in that it does not point out in what way such charge is erroneous or the plaintiff in error could be prejudiced by such charge; further, that such charge is not a general one for the reason that "it does not submit issues of fact to the jury and instruct them if they found such issues of fact to exist to find for either the plaintiff or the defendant."

In contending that the charge in question is not a general one, the defendant in error seems to confound a general verdict with a general charge. A "general verdict" is defined by article 1983, Vernon's Statutes, as "one...