Peterson v. Hall.
| Decision Date | 28 March 1905 |
| Citation | 57 W.Va. 535 |
| Parties | Peterson v. Hall. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Chancery has jurisdiction to decide between conflicting-claims lo rent or royalty oil under conflicting' oil leases to the same lessee both as to that already produced, and that to he produced in future, by the lessee under the leases, which royalty oil is by the leases to be delivered to the credit of the lessors. /Ann v. Zinn, 54 W. Va. 483, overruled, (pp. 537, 539.)
There may be separate distinct estates in different persons in the surface of land and oil and other minerals in it. (p. 540.)
When the surface of laud is owned by one person, the oil in place by another, a sale for taxes in the name of the owner of the surface will pass also the oil owned by the other person, his estate not being charged on the tax books, under section 25, chapter 31, Code 1899. (p. 540.)
A lessee under an ordinary oil lease for years has no vested taxable estate in the oil still in the ground, either before or after he has found paying wells. It is taxable in the name of the surface owner, (p. 541.)
Appeal from Circuit Court, Wetzel County.
Bill by B. Walker Peterson against Camissee Hall and others. Decree for defendants, and plaintiff and Z. M. Price
H. M. Russell and Hall & Hall, for appellants.
W. G. & C. A. Snodgrass, A. B. & R, F. Fleming, T. P. Jacobs, and U. N. Arnett, Jr., for appellees.
Bran non, President:
Affirmed. pany, the lease reserving; to Peterson one-eight royalty in oil. The lease was for five years and as much longer as oil should be produced in paying quantity. Peterson conveyed sixtyfour acres of the same land to Camissee Hall by deed 15th April, 1894. The deed, to Hall states that it is subject to the lease of Peterson to the South Penn Oil Company, and also expressly excepted from the conveyance one-half of Peterson's interest in that lease, that is, kept half the oil royalty. This sixty-four acre tract was sold for taxes of 1898 in 1899 in the name of Hall, purchased by R. E. L. Snodgrass, who took a tax deed under his purchase, and subsequently conveyed the sixty-four acres to C. R. Snodgrass. Later, 19th November, 1901, C. R. Snodgrass made a lease of the sixty-four acres to the South Penn Oil Co. for oil and gas purposes reserving a royalty, and later conveyed half of his royalty oil to the company. The South Penn Oil Co. drilled wells on the other part of the large tract, and afterwards drilled wells on the sixty-four acres, which produced oil in paying quantity, and the oil was delivered for conveyance to market to the Eureka Pipe Line Company, a common carrier of oil. The sixtyfour acres was not taxed in 1898 to either Peterson or the Oil Co. The Eureka Pipe Line Co. withheld the royalty because of a conflicting claim between Peterson and Snodgrass to the said royalty oil. It appears that the South Penn Co. drilled on the sixty-four acres under the Snodgrass lease, and delivered one-sixteenth to the Eureka Co. to his credit. Owing to the conflicting claims of Peterson and C. R. Snodgrass to the rental or royalty oil produced on the sixty-four acres Peterson brought a suit in equity in the circuit court of Wetzel county against Camissee Hall, the Pipe Line "Co., the South Penn Co., R. E. L. Snodgrass, C. R. Snodgrass and others, asking-that the South Penn Co. be enjoined from further developing or taking oil from the sixty-four acres, unless and until it should recognize the continued validity and operation, as to the sixty-four acre tract, of the lease of Peterson to the South Penn Oil Co., and until that company should deliver to Peterson his sixteenth share of the oil as it should be produced, and that C. R. Snodgrass should be enjoined from laying any claim to the sixteenth of the oil already produced or still in the land, and from doing anything by claim or otherwise to interfere with the development of oil on said land under Peterson's lease to the South Penn Oil Co. The bill prayed that the said two companies account for all the oil already produced on said land, and for decree against them therefor, either by delivery of the oil in kind or payment of its value in money. The bill also prayed that the lease of C. R. Snodgrass to the South Penn Oil Co. beset aside and held for naught as to the plaintiff's right, and that C. R. Snodgrass be declared not entitled to any part of Peterson's sixteenth in the oil produced, or to be produced, from the land, and requiring the South Penn Oil Co. to develop the land under the lease made to it by Peterson. The bill stated that the plaintiff did not know the amount of oil produced and asked for discovery thereof. The contest is whether Peterson or Snodgrass owns the sixteenth oil royalty. The bill further prays that it be decreed that Snodgrass is not entitled to any part of Peterson's sixteenth of the oil already produced, or of that to be produced in future, and not entitled to any part of Peterson's sixteenth yet in the land. The bill also charged that if the South Penn Co. elected to develop oil under the Snodgrass lease, it was an abandonment of the Peterson lease, and this lease had become void, and the company had no right to take oil from the land. The bill also asked that the lease by Snodgrass be cancelled. It also called for a discovery of oil already produced. A decree dismissed the bill, and Peterson appealed.
A question at once arises as to the jurisdiction in equity. It is said there is none. It strikes the mind that equity is the only forum which can give adequate relief. The absence of adequate relief at law is a well known source of concurrent jurisdiction in equity. To drive a case brought in the chancery court out of it we must be able to say that the common law court can give full, not partial, but full relief, adjudicating the rights and duties of all the parties having interests in the matter before the court. To deny equity jurisdiction because of a remedy at law, the legal remedy, must not be merely partial, that is, going only to a certain extent of the matters involved; but it must be adequate to the demands of the particular case, and as full, complete and efficacious as that given in equity. It must not be doubtful. It must not leave open for future litigation matters really and substantially involved. Carney v. Barnes, 56 W. Va. 581, (49 S. E. 423). What the case, under its circumstances, requires, is a remedy which will at once and finally settle the rights of all the parties in the past and future. The plaintiff asks that both the South Penn.Oil Company and the Eureka Pipe Line Company account to him. Which is to be held liable? Are both indifferently, or both differently, one primarily? What action at law will settle this and bind both? If one is sued, the judgment will not be binding on the other. The South Penn Co. produces the oil, and delivers it to the custody of the Eureka Co. Is the former to be held for improper delivery to the Eureka to the credit of Snodgrass? Is it liable for wrongful conversion? Is the Eureka Co. liable for the oil as Peterson's oil? The bill asks, somewhat in the alternative, that these companies deliver Peterson either oil or money for it. As to that produced already, which is liable? Detinue will not lie for Peterson's share, undivided, of the oil. How could the sheriff deliver possession of it under an execution on a judgment in detinue? Detinue would lie for barrels or sacks of wheat, but not for one hundred bushels in a mass of one thousand. Could the sheriff make division? Peterson cannot sue Snodgrass in ejectment or unlawful detainer for the land, from which the oil comes. He might sue for the value of the oil received by Snodgrass, but how often must he sue as production goes along? What the parties desire is that production go on by the South Penn and the contested oil be delivered to the Eureka Co. to the credit of the proper person, and this needs a suit to determine title to that contested share of oil between Peterson and Snodgrass, and bind both the companies. And there is the claim, too, of Z. M. Price to this contested share. And, further, the bill claims that if the South Penn Co. elect to claim under its lease from Snodgrass it is an abandonment of the Peterson lease, and should be so declared. What other remedy will give full, complete relief than an equity suit, which is unlike the formal straightlaced action at law, which cannot be moulded...
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