Miller v. Ridgley

• Decision Date: 20 January 1954
• Docket Number: No. 33033,33033
• Citation: 117 N.E.2d 759,2 Ill.2d 223
• Parties: MILLER et al. v. RIDGLEY.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 759

117 N.E.2d 759

2 Ill.2d 223

MILLER et al. v.RIDGLEY.

No. 33033.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 20, 1954.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing March 15, 1954.

Charles E. Jones and W. A. McCarty, Robinson, for appellants.

Maurice E. Gosnell, Lawrenceville, for appellee.

HERSHEY, Justice.

The appellants herein filed a suit in the circuit court of Crawford County to quiet title and to remove as a cloud on the title of certain real estate described in the complaint and owned by the appellants a claim of the appellee that he was the owner of the oil-and-gas rights in and to said real estate.The appellee bases his claim on a certain provision contained in a deed executed on March 9, 1923, by plaintiffs' predecessors in title to said real estate and said provision is, 'All oil rights reserved to the grantors and subject to existing oil leases.'Because of this provision the appellee claims ownership of the oil rights in said real estate as the surviving husband and only heir of the daughter of the grantors of the deed executed March 9, 1923, who died eight months after the death of the surviving grantor.Subsequent to the execution of said deed and before the institution of the present suit, the Ohio Oil Company cancelled and released of record the existing oil lease on land involved in this suit and described in the deed of March 9, 1923.

The original and amended complaint filed in this cause set forth all the foregoing facts, which are undisputed by the parties in this cause.To said original complaint the appellee filed a motion to dismiss, and also to the complaint as amended.In said motion the appellee claims that he is the owner of all the oil and gas in and to said real estate free and clear of any leasehold rights, and oil lease existing on said real estate having been released prior to the filing of this suit.The appellants contend that the deed of March 9, 1923, conveyed all the oil-and-gas rights in and to said real estate, and that when the existing oil lease on said real estate was cancelled and released of record neither the grantors nor their heirs had any further interest in the oil and gas in and upon said real estate.

The trial court sustained the motion to dismiss the original complaint, and also the amended complaint.Thereupon the appellants elected to file no further pleading and the trial court dismissed the complaint and suit at appellants' costs.Inasmuch as oil in place and the rights thereto comprise an interest in real estate, Watford Oil & Gas Co. v. Shipman, 233 Ill. 9, 84 N.E. 53, and title to same is here involved, a direct appeal is taken to this court.

In order to determine the rights of the various parties in this suit to the oil rights in and upon the real estate involved in this case, it is necessary to construe the deed of March 9, 1923, which contained the provision hereinbefore set forth.The primary purpose of the construction of the deed is to ascertain the intention of the parties, to be determined and gathered from the instrument as a whole, giving effect to every word and rejecting none as meaningless or repugnant, if it can be done without violating any positive rule of law.Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. West, 374 Ill. 516, 30 N.E.2d 24, 136 A.L.R. 372;Smith v. Grubb, 402 Ill. 451, 84 N.E.2d 421.Also the circumstances attending the transaction, the situation of the parties, the objects which they had in mind, as shown by the deed, as well as those they did not have in mind and could not attain, merit consideration in construing deeds.Texas Co. v. O'Meara, 377 Ill. 144, 36 N.E.2d 256.In the instant case, no evidence of any kind was introduced.The suit was dismissed on motion.All this court has before it, and all the trial court had before it, is a photostatic copy of the deed attached to the amended complaint, and it is from that instrument and its wording that this court is obliged to ascertain the intention and meaning of the parties in its execution.While the appellants contend that this court has a right to take judicial notice of certain scientific facts which have been established by authoritative scientific works, an examination of the authorities cited in support of this practice shows they are not applicable to the case here under consideration.

In general, a landowner is entitled to the surface and all that is below it, and when he makes a deed that contains no reservation and does not limit the estate conveyed, he conveys everything under the surface as well as on the surface itself.Updike v. Smith, 378 Ill. 600, 39 N.E.2d 325.His interest in the oil and gas in and upon the real estate is accessory to his legal interest in the land and will pass by a grant of the land unless he expresses an intention to retain that interest.1 Summer, Oil and Gas, 2d, p. 324, and cases there cited: Updike v. Smith, 378 Ill. 600, 39 N.E.2d 325.It is undisputed that the grantors in this deed of March 9, 1923, before its execution, owned said land subject to the existing oil leases.Oil and gas in the earth cannot be subject to an ownership distinct from the soil so long as they remain in the earth.Updike v. Smith, 378 Ill. 600, 39 N.E.2d 325.The effect of the oil lease existing on this land at the time of the execution of this deed was not to convey the oil and gas under said land, but to convey title only to such oil and gas as the lessee might find, produce, use and market.The oil and gas remaining under the land continued to be the property of the lessor and might pass from him by descent or devise.Watford Oil & Gas Co. v. Shipman, 233 Ill. 9, 84 N.E. 53;Conover v. Parker, 305 Ill. 292, 137 N.E. 204.Therefore it is apparent that at the time of the execution of the deed in March, 1923, the grantors held feesimple title to the land involved in this suit, which included the oil and gas in place.They belong to the owner of the land so long as they remain under the land.Transcontinental Oil Co. v. Emmerson, 298 Ill. 394, 131 N.E. 645, 16 A.L.R. 507.

It has long been settled in Illinois that a mineral estate may be severed from the surface estate by a grant of the land specifically reserving the minerals, and when this has been accomplished by a deed, two estates exist in the land which are subject to independent ownership and to separate taxation and which may be devised or conveyed like any other real estate.Shell Oil Co. v. Moore, 382 Ill. 556, 48 N.E.2d 400;Deverick v. Bline, 404 Ill. 302, 89 N.E.2d 43.

Now let us consider the application of the foregoing principle to the instant case.It is apparent that if the grantors wished to convey all their interest in the oil and gas in and upon said real estate, this could have been accomplished by a warranty deed and without any other provision than that the same was made subject to existing oil leases.The land, both surface and the oil and gas in place, subject to the rights of the lessee, would have been conveyed.However, the grantors did more than that.They inserted before the language 'subject to existing oil lease,' the clause 'All oil rights reserved to the grantors.'Certainly some purpose was to be served by the insertion of such phrase and by giving effect to all words used, it simply means that all oil rights were reserved, subject to the rights of the lessee to take such oil as it might find.

A somewhat similar situation is found in the case of Moore v. Griffin, 72 Kan. 164, 83 P. 395, 4 L.R.A.,N.S., 477.The landowners in that case made a lease of the oil-and-gas privileges in said land.Thereafter they conveyed the land excepting and reserving all rights and privileges reserved to them by the lease and to "all oil and gas privileges in, and to said premises."Their grantee conveyed by warranty deed to another without any reservation or exception.Thereafter, the oil-and-gas lease on said premises was cancelled by consent of the parties to the lease.All of the conveyances were of record, and subsequent purchasers took with constructive notice, and therefore took no interest in the oil and gas.The cancellation of the lease did not extinguish the rights of the original owners of the land nor vest the right to the oil and gas in the owners of the lands at the time of such cancellation.This case is an authority for the legal principle that the owner of the lands does have the right to reserve unto himself all of the oil-and-gas rights when a conveyance is made, if the provision of the deed so stated.The instant case in many...