Louisiana Petroleum Co. v. Broussard

• Decision Date: 27 April 1931
• Docket Number: 30719
• Citation: 172 La. 613,135 So. 1
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: LOUISIANA PETROLEUM CO. v. BROUSSARD et al

135 So. 1

172 La. 613

LOUISIANA PETROLEUM CO. v. BROUSSARD et al

No. 30719

Supreme Court of Louisiana

April 27, 1931

Rehearing Denied May 25, 1931

Appeal from Sixteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of St. Martin James B. Simon, Judge.

Action by Louisiana Petroleum Company against A. G. Broussard and others. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants, except named defendant and another, appeal.

Amended and affirmed.

Mouton & DeBaillon, of La Fayette, for appellants Bendel, Parkerson Nickerson and Vennard.

Pugh & Buatt and Medlenka, Bruner & Chambers, all of Crowley, for appellee.

OPINION

OVERTON, J.

This is an action for slander of title, filed on September 21, 1927, involving the title to certain mineral rights, on land in the Anse La Butte oil field, in the parish of St. Martin.

Antoine Patin was the undisputed owner of this land, without any severance of the rights of ownership. In April, 1901, Patin conveyed to Hiram W. Parker, Jean Jacques Nassans, and George E. Sears the exclusive and perpetualright and privilege, for an indefinite time, to excavate, bore, or dig for oil, gas, and minerals of any kind on and in the forty-arpent tract. On July 8, 1901 Patin's vendees transferred the rights, acquired by their purchase, to plaintiff. From that time, until the institution of this suit, various leases and subleases have emanated from plaintiff and its assigns, and those holding under them.

When Patin acquired the land the community of acquets and gains was in existence between him and his wife. However, about 1923 - years after plaintiff acquired the mineral rights on the property -- Patin's wife died, and the community thereby came to an end. In the same year her children were sent into possession of their mother's undivided half of the land. Following this, there was a partition of all the property of the succession of the wife. For this, the forty-arpent tract was divided into four ten-arpent tracts, one ten-arpent tract, falling to each of four children, namely to Beulah Patin, who was allotted the western ten arpents, to Freddie Patin, who was allotted the adjoining ten arpents to the east, to Philomene Patin, who was allotted the adjoining ten arpents to the east of Freddie Patin, and to Editha Patin, who was allotted the eastern ten arpents.

Freddie Patin transferred to Evans Guidroz and Hebert Billeaud an undivided one-half of the mineral rights in the ten arpents, allotted to him, and later sold the ten arpents to Isaac B. Bendel and Charles M. Parkerson, except the undivided half interest in the minerals sold to Guidroz and Billeaud. Editha Patin sold to J. C. Nickerson and Wickliff V. Vennard the ten arpents allotted to her, and Philomene and Beulah Patin sold to A. G. Broussard all the minerals in the two ten-arpent tracts allotted to them.

It is these transfers by the children of Mrs. Patin, and the claims made thereunder, that have given rise to the present action of slander of title.

Those made defendants in the case are A. G. Broussard, Evans Guidroz, Hebert Billeaud, Isaac B. Bendel, Charles M. Parkerson, J. C. Nickerson, and Wickliff V. Vennard, all of whom claim the rights, asserted by them, under the foregoing transfers from the children of Mrs. Patin. They aver in their answers, among other things, that the mineral rights, claimed by plaintiff, have not been exercised for ten years, and therefore have been lost by the prescription of ten years, liberandi causa. They ask that they be recognized as owners of the mineral rights, claimed by them, and those of them who claim ownership of parts of the land itself ask that their titles be recognized.

The trial resulted in a judgment for plaintiff, recognizing it "as the legal and actual possessor of the exclusive right of the servitude on the land in question, and overruling the pleas of prescription filed by defendants." Of the seven defendants all have appealed from the judgment, except Broussard and Guidroz.

The first well drilled on the forty-arpent tract was drilled by plaintiff's lessees in 1908, the drilling being to a depth of approximately 1,700 feet. This well proved to be nonproductive. Thereafter at other times, under the mineral contract, acquired by plaintiff, some seven or eight wells were drilled, by lessees and sublessees. None of them, however, proved to be, from a commercial standpoint, productive. These wells ranged from 1,700 feet to 500 or 600 feet in depth. Only one of them was drilled to a depth of 1,700 feet, and only one to a depth of 1,500 feet. The rest ranged from 500 to 600 feet indepth, and salt water only was obtained from them.

Some productive wells were drilled in other sections of the field, but none that produced oil, so far as appears, in paying quantities, at a depth of 750 or 767 feet, and apparently none, with but one exception, at less than a depth of 1,100 feet, and that one was not less than 900 feet deep. The forty-arpent tract was farther from the salt dome than the wells we have mentioned, which would indicate that, if oil could be produced on the land, it would be found at a greater depth than on land nearer the dome.

In 1910, what is known as the Crowley Oil & Mineral Company well was drilled on the property, under the rights acquired by plaintiff. This well was drilled to a depth of 1,500 feet without success, and is one of the wells, mentioned above. It was abandoned in the spring of 1911. Thereafter, no well was drilled on the property until October, 1920, when, under a sublease obtained by Dr. E. M. Saucier, drilling operations were begun anew. The...