Noel v. Atlantic Refining Company
| Decision Date | 19 April 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 5805,5805 |
| Citation | 414 S.W.2d 718 |
| Parties | W. D. NOEL et al., Appellants, v. The ATLANTIC REFINING COMPANY, Appellee. . El Paso |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Crawford C. Martin, Atty. Gen., C. L. Snow, Milton Richardson, Hawthorne Phillips, Arthur Sandlin, Asst. Attys. Gen., Austin, Shepperd & Rodman, Odessa, Pat H. Candler, Dallas, for appellants.
Stubbeman, McRae, Sealy & Laughlin, Durward Goolsby, W. B. Browder, Jr., Midland, for appellee.
This is a suit in the nature of trespass to try title to land involved in a vacancy award. The trial court sitting without a jury granted judgment for the plaintiff for title to the minerals under the land, found that it was not a vacancy, and canceled the patents.
The Atlantic Refining Company, appellee herein, sued all of the defendants, W. D. Noel, J. S. Lane, Harry Howard and wife, and Bankers Life Company for title and possession of two tracts of land, the first tract containing 60.53 acres and being described as part of Section 10, Block 1, and the second containing 94.5 acres described as being out of Section 26, Block 1, M.K. & T.R.R. Co. Survey in Upton County, Texas; and Atlantic also asked judgment declaring that said two tracts of land were not vacant, unsurveyed school lands and it alleged that the application of the defendant Noel to lease said tracts should have been denied, and the Good Faith Claimant applications to purchase of the defendants Lane and Howard should have been denied, and the patents awarded under such applications canceled. Bankers Life Company was a party to the suit as the holder of a deed of trust mortage on the Howard property. The State of Texas intervened and filed an answer and trespass to try title cross-action.
Blocks 1 and 2, M.K. & T.R.R. Co. Survey were originally surveyed in 1881 by H. C. Barton. Block 1 was resurveyed in 1913 by R. S. Dod. The controversy over the land in question is the result of conflicts in the two surveys, in that Dod placed the north lines of Sections 10 and 26 south of Barton's locations for such lines. Thus the two tracts in question come out of Sections 10 and 26, as originally surveyed by Barton. Sections 1 and 15 of Block 2 were patented on Barton's field notes and they are immediately north of sections 10 and 26 respectively. Sections 10 and 26 were patented on Dod's survey, and with the four sections in place by the field notes on which each was patented, the two tracts involved exist between them. W. D. Noel filed an application to lease the minerals on the two tracts, alleging them to be vacant, unsurveyed land belonging to the Public Free School Fund, as provided by Article 5421c, Vernon's Ann.Civ.St. The Commissioner of the General Land Office approved Noel's application after a survey and public hearing . Patents were also later issued to Lane and Howard on the two tracts following their application to purchase as Good Faith Claimants. Atlantic then instituted this suit in which it claims tht two tracts are not vacant, unsurveyed land, and that it owns the minerals thereunder by reason of having purchased all of the minerals under Sections 10 and 26 after Dod's resurvey, but before patents issued based on such survey. Appellee, as plaintiff in the trespass to try title suit, undertook to prove that title to the land in question had passed out of the State and is now vested in plaintiff. The chain of title is unbroken, but we are of the opinion that title remained in the State because of the circumstances of the issuance of patents to Sections 10 and 26 based on the resurvey. The principle of law involved is that one who accepts a patent to land containing field notes which do not embrace all of the original survey is estopped to claim any right by virtue of the original survey; or stated otherwise, the assignee of a land certificate loses all title or claim to so much land as may be included in an original file and survey thereunder as is without the limits of a corrected survey on which such assignee accepts a patent . The rule is fully set forth by the Supreme Court in three cases decided on the same date (May 13, 1933)--Miller v. Yates, 122 Tex. 435, 61 S.W.2d 767; Holmes v. Yates, 122 Tex. 428, 61 S.W.2d 771; Turner v. Smith, 122 Tex. 338, 61 S.W.2d 792. Also see Wofford v. Miller, Tex.Civ.App., 381 S.W.2d 640, err. ref., n.r.e., and cases there cited.
The chain of title relied on by plaintiff included applications to purchase Section 10 by one H. R. Smith, filed in 1905, and Section 26 by one Jno. R. Johnson, filed in 1904. The certificates which issued on these applications, by a chain of assignments, came to be owned by Union Land Company, along with certificates to other sections in Block 1. All were based on the survey of Barton. In 1913 Union Land Company determined to have Block 1 resurveyed and entered into a written contract with Dod to make such survey. That contract provided that Dod was to render to the General Land Office of the State of Texas for its file a complete set of field notes and maps of his survey, and that in no case were corners to be left out and notes so incomplete as to cause the General Land Office to reject the maps and notes after the surveys had been made. It was also provided that a portion of Dod's pay was to be withheld until his notes were accepted by the General Land Office. In negotiating its contract with Dod, Union Land Company was informed by Dod that it would be necessary for it to apply to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, designating the land to be surveyed, and have him commissioned by the General Land Office if Union desired the work to go on record in the General Land Office . Those things were done by Union Land Company, Dod may the resurvey, and his field notes and maps were accepted by the General Land Office and placed in its files. Union Land Company was informed by the General Land Office that the field notes of the resurvey by Dod Union Land Company by reply letter acknowledged receipt of this General Land Office letter. The contract and correspondence above referred to have been a part of the General Land Office files regarding this land through the years.
Cordova-Union Oil Corporation purchased the interests of Union Land Company and in 1943 conveyed to plaintiff, Atlantic Refining Company, all of the minerals in lands owned by it in Texas. In 1944 Cordova-Union conveyed Section 10 to Lane, and Section 26 to Howard, by deed reciting that all of the minerals had previously been conveyed to Atlantic. Also in 1944, Cordova-Union paid to the State the balance owing on the purchase price of such sections. In 1945 Great Southern Life Insurance Co., a mortgagee of both Lane and Howard, processed applications for patents to Sections 10 and 26. Patent to Section 10 was issued to E. G....
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Atlantic Refining Co. v. Noel
...rendered judgment that there were no vacancies in the area claimed by the defendants. The court of civil appeals reversed that judgment. 414 S.W.2d 718. The basis for the decision of the court of civil appeals was that Atlantic is estopped to deny the existence of the vacancies. We are of t......