Life v. The Rugged State Dev. Co.

• Decision Date: 26 February 1929
• Docket Number: (No. 6326)
• Citation: 107 W.Va. 33
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: J. M. Life v. The Rugged State Development Companyand The United Fuel Gas Company

107 W.Va. 33

J. M. Life

v. The Rugged State Development Companyand The United Fuel Gas Company

(No. 6326)

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted February 19, 1929.

Decided February 26, 1929.

Venue Suit For Accounting by Fart Owner of Oil And Gas Leases Was Pro-perly Instituted in County Wherein Defendants Resided (Code, c. 123, § 1).

A bill in equity, alleging that the plaintiff and one of two defendants own certain oil and gas leases which are being developed by the other defendant as lessee of the first, and praying an accounting for the oil or gas produced, is not demurrable because the suit is brought in the county wherein the defendants reside and not in the county where the lands are located.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Kanawha County.

Suit by J. M. Life against the Rugged State Development Company and others. Decree of dismissal, and plaintiff appeals.

Reversed and remanded. J. Howard Hundley, for appellant.

J. Raymond Gordon and Lively & Stambaugh, for appellees. Litz, Judge:

The plaintiff, J. M. Life, appeals from a decree of the circuit court dismissing his bill on demurrer of defendant, Rugged State Development Company, for want of jurisdiction.

The bill alleges that the plaintiff owns one-fifth and the defendant, Rugged State Development Company, owns fourfifths of certain oil and gas leases covering lands in Putnam county, which are now being developed for gas by the defendant, United Fuel Gas Company, under a lease from the Rugged State Development Company; and prays an accounting for the gas produced.

Counsel for the Rugged State Development Company say that because the right of the plaintiff to an accounting depends upon his ownership in the leases, the suit should have been brought in Putnam county where the lands lie. Section 1, Chapter 123, Code, and Wayland Oil & Gas Company v. Rummel, 78 W. Va. 196, are cited as supporting this contention. The parts of the statute relied on follow: "Any action at law or suit in equity, except where it is otherwise specially provided, may hereafter be brought in the circuit court of any county; (1) wherein any of the defendants may reside, except that an action of ejectment or unlawful detainer must be brought in the county wherein the land sought to be recovered or some part thereof is; or * * * (3) if it be to recover land or subject it to a debt wherein such land or any part thereof may be." It was held in the case of Wayland Oil & Gas Company v. Rummel, that a suit to enjoin trespass to real property and remove cloud from the title thereto must be brought in the county where the land is situated. The court, speaking through Judge Lynch, said: "Denial of such right (jurisdiction) is within the spirit, if not the express terms, of clause 3, section 1, Chapter 123, Code, when read in connection with section 4, Chapter 133. These provisions evince a legislative intendment to place a limitation upon the scope of the power of such other courts to deal with lands situate in remote counties of the...