Railroad Commission v. Gulf Production Co.
| Decision Date | 25 October 1939 |
| Docket Number | No. 7481.,7481. |
| Citation | 132 S.W.2d 254 |
| Parties | RAILROAD COMMISSION OF TEXAS et al. v. GULF PRODUCTION CO. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Gerald C. Mann, Atty. Gen., James P. Hart, E. R. Simmons, Edgar W. Cale, and Tom D. Rowell, Jr., Asst. Attys. Gen., Wm. McCraw, Former Atty. Gen., and Harry S. Pollard and Chas. D. Rutta, Former Asst. Attys. Gen., for plaintiff in error Railroad Commission.
Clyde H. Hall and Hurst, Leak & Burke, all of Longview, for plaintiff in error Tippett.
J. W. Wheeler and Greenwood, Moody & Robertson, all of Austin, and Robert E. Hardwicke, of Fort Worth, amici curiæ.
Joe S. Brown, R. F. Carter, and John E. Green, Jr., all of Houston, and Stanley Hornsby, of Austin, for defendant in error.
This is a Rule 37 case. It appears from the record before us that on May 17, 1935, J. C. Tippett was the owner of an oil and gas lease covering 4.77 acres of land in Gregg County, Texas, on which two producing wells were then located. On the date just mentioned the Railroad Commission granted Tippett a permit to drill a third oil well on the above-mentioned tract, as an exception under Rule 37. The pertinent Commission order expressly states that the permit "should be granted to prevent the confiscation of property." Nothing is said in the order about waste, and no finding whatever was made by the Commission in regard thereto. After the above permit was granted, Gulf Production Company, owner of the abutting lease, filed suit in the District Court of Travis County, Texas, to annul the same, to enjoin the drilling or operation of any well thereunder, and to compel the plugging of any well so drilled. The case was tried in the district court before the court without the intervention of a jury, and judgment entered cancelling and annulling the permit, enjoining the operation of any well thereunder; and it appearing that the well in question had already been drilled at the time of the trial, it was ordered that same should be plugged. Tippett and the Railroad Commission appealed from the district court judgment to the Court of Civil Appeals at Austin. On final hearing in that court, the judgment of the district court was affirmed in an opinion by Associate Justice Baugh, concurred in by Chief Justice McClendon, except as to that part of such judgment which ordered the well plugged. That part of the district court judgment was reversed and set aside. 115 S.W.2d 505. Associate Justice Blair dissented from that part of the opinion of the majority setting aside the permit and enjoining the drilling or operation of any well thereunder. Tippett and the Railroad Commission each made application for writ of error to this Court, and both applications were granted. It appears that in granting such applications we made the notation: "on the dissenting opinion."
This case was submitted and argued at the same time Gulf Land Company v. Atlantic Refining Company, Tex.Sup., 131 S.W.2d 73, was submitted and argued. Many of the law questions here involved were discussed and settled in that opinion, and we will not enter into any further extended discussion of such law questions here.
Plaintiffs in error, Tippett and the Railroad Commission, contend...
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