Realty Operators v. State Mineral Bd.

• Decision Date: 30 December 1942
• Docket Number: 36617.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: REALTY OPERATORS, Inc., v. STATE MINERAL BOARD et al.

12 So.2d 198

202 La. 398

REALTY OPERATORS, Inc., v. STATE MINERAL BOARD et al.

No. 36617.

Supreme Court of Louisiana

December 30, 1942

Rehearing Denied Feb. 1, 1943.

Eugene Stanley, Attorney General, and C. C. Wood Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendants-appellants.

Dufour St. Paul & Levy and Dart & Dart, all of New Orleans for plaintiff-appellee.

Herold, Cousin & Herold, of Shreveport, amici curiae.

McCALEB Justice.

The plaintiff, Realty Operators, Inc., seeks an injunction against the State Mineral Board, and its members and successors, to prevent the Board from granting a mineral lease to the bed or bottom of a body of water located in Terrebonne Parish, commonly known as 'Lake Hatch'.

Plaintiff claims to be the owner of the bed and bottom of Lake Hatch by virtue of five certain patents issued by the State of Louisiana to plaintiff's authors in title and thereafter acquired by plaintiff at a sheriff's sale in a foreclosure proceeding entitled 'Realty Operators Inc. v. Mary Minor Pipes et al.' No. 10303 of the docket of the Seventeenth Judicial District Court for the Parish of Terrebonne. In its petition, plaintiff sets forth a complete chain of title, beginning with the patents issued by the State to John D. Minor, F. A. Bonvillian, Lewellyn Hatch, Winslow Hatch and R. H. Grinage, to its acquisition in the foreclosure proceedings against Mary Minor Pipes et al. The land acquired under the patents is a large tract located in Terrebonne Parish, composed in part of the following described property situated in Township 18 South, Range 16 East, to wit: 'All of Section 11 (except the North 1/2 of the North west 1/4) and all of Sections 12, 13 and 14 containing approximately 2480 acres'.

It is averred by plaintiff that Lake Hatch lies wholly within the above-described sections and wholly upon those portions of said sections owned by it; that the lake is a shallow land-locked fresh-water lagoon which is not navigable; that its bottom or bed comprises approximately 400 acres; that the value of the oil, gas and other mineral rights therein exceed the sum of $6,000; that it is now and has been at all times, since the year 1934, in actual physical and peaceful possession, as owner, of the land on which the lake is located and that it vendors and their vendors enjoyed a like possession thereof for at least twenty years prior to the date on which the suit was filed.

It is further alleged that the defendants, the State Mineral Board and the members thereof, claiming to act by virtue of and pursuant to the provisions of Act No. 93 of 1936, have advertised for and solicited sealed bids for the leasing of the oil, gas and other mineral rights to the bottom and bed of Lake Hatch; that the acts of the defendants in so doing are illegal, constituting a trespass upon the property, a slander of plaintiff's title to said land and casts a cloud upon its title and that, unless restrained by injunction, the defendants will lease the mineral rights to the bottom and bed of said lake to the injury of plaintiff. Accordingly, plaintiff prayed for the issuance of a temporary restraining order, together with a rule nisi for a preliminary injunction, and also prayed that, after a trial on the merits of the case, a permanent injunction issue enjoining the defendants from leasing or attempting to lease the oil, gas or other mineral rights is and to the property constituting the bed and bottom of the lake.

Upon the showing made by plaintiff in its petition, a temporary restraining order was issued by the district judge and the defendants were ordered to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not be granted in conformity with the prayer of plaintiff's petition. Thereafter, the State Mineral Board and the individual members thereof, represented by the Attorney General of the State, appeared and, for answer to the rule to show cause, denied in substance that the title held by plaintiff under the original patents issued by the State extended to Lake Hatch, and further contended that, even if they had, the said patents did not and could not include the bottom of the lake because the lake was, at the time of the issuance of the patents to plaintiff's ancestors in title, and prior and subsequent thereto, a navigable body of water and, as such, title to the bed and bottom of the lake remained vested in the State of Louisiana. Defendants admitted, in their answer, that the State Mineral Board had advertised for bids for a lease of the oil, gas and other minerals on the property in controversy and insisted that sais Board had the right to do so because, inasmuch as Lake Hatch was a navigable body of water, the bed and bottom thereof belonged to the State and could not be conveyed to plaintiff's ancestors in title by virtue of the patents under which plaintiff claimed. In addition to their answer, defendants filed an exception of no right or cause of action to plaintiff's petition.

Thereafter, plaintiff filed a plea of preemption, in which it assailed the right of defendants to contest the validity of the patents covering the property involved in the suit, claiming that any right or rights asserted by the defendants on behalf of the State of Louisiana respecting the validity of the patents were barred by Act No. 62 of 1912, which provides that suits to annul patents previously issued by the State shall be brought within six years after the passage of the act.

On the foregoing issues, the case proceeded to trial, at which considerable evidence was offered by the litigants in support of their respective contentions. It was stipulated between counsel that the evidence taken at the hearing would be considered as a trial on the merits of the case and that, in case the judge decided in favor of plaintiff, a permanent injunction would issue. After the hearing, the judge, being of the opinion that the plaintiff's claim was well founded, overruled defendant's exception of no right or cause of action and issued a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from leasing to any person whomsoever the oil, gas or other mineral rights in and to the property constituting the bed and bottom of Lake Hatch. The defendants have appealed from the adverse decision.

In this court, the defendants maintain that the trial judge erred in the following respects: (1) In failing to sustain their exception of no right or cause of action, (2) in holding that the evidence was sufficient to show that Lake Hatch is situated within sections 11, 12, 13 and 14 of Township 18 South, Range 16 East of Terrebonne Parish, and that plaintiff had been in possession of the bottom of sais lake for more than a year prior to the filing of the suit, and (3) in holding that Lake Hatch was not a navigable body of water and in failing to admit certain evidence touching on the question of navigability of the lake which was tendered by them.

We first direct our attention to the defendant's exception of no right or cause of action. This exception is predicated upon the provisions of Act No. 29 of the Extra Session of 1915 which, the defendants claim, expressly prohibits the issuance of an injunction in a case of this kind. The pertinent portion of the statute relied upon by the defendants reads as follows: 'That the writ of injunction shall not lie in any suit brought against the lessees of the State, or the officers of employees of the State to restrain the exploitation for oil, gas or other mineral, of lands, river bottoms, or lake bottoms, the ownership of which is in the State; but in all such cases the remedy of the plaintiff in such suit shall be confined to a demand that the product of such exploitation, or the proceeds of the sale thereof, shall be judicially sequestrated, until the rights of all persons asserting any lawful claim to such product or proceeds shall be determined.' (Italics ours.) Section 1.

Defendants declare that the allegations of fact contained in plaintiff's petition places the case squarely within the above-quoted provisions and that injunctive relief cannot be granted since this is a suit brought against officers and employees of the State seeking to restrain the exploitation of oil, gas and other minerals of a lake bottom, the ownership of which is claimed to be in the State.

We find no merit in the contention. A mere reading of the statute discloses that its application is limited to cases where the ownership of the land, lake or river bottom is in the State and claim is made to the product of the explorations and not, as defense counsel say, to matters in which the State is asserting that it is the owner of the land or lake. However, counsel proclaim that this court has definitely decided, in Wemple v. Eastham, 144 La. 957, 81 So. 438, that the provisions of the statute are broad enough to cover a case where the state is claiming as owner, as well as in cases where its ownership is not in dispute.

In Wemple v Eastham, the plaintiff, alleging himself to be the owner of certain property including the bed of a bayou, sought to enjoin the defendants from exploring for oil and gas under a lease which had been granted to them by the State. The defendants answered alleging the validity of the title of the State; that, by virtue of the lease, they had undertaken to go upon the premises for the purpose of boring for oil and gas, but had been prevented from doing so by acts of force and violence on the part of the plaintiff and that plaintiff was seeking to accomplish, by this means, that which he was not permitted to do through the processes of the court by Act No. 29 of the Extra Session of 1915,--that is, to prevent them from exercising their rights under the lease pendente lite. They accordingly prayed for a writ of preliminary injunction to restrain ...