Right of Way Oil Co. v. Gladys City Oil, Gas & Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 June 1913
• Citation: 157 S.W. 737
• Parties: RIGHT OF WAY OIL CO. et al. v. GLADYS CITY OIL, GAS & MFG. CO. et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 737

157 S.W. 737

RIGHT OF WAY OIL CO. et al. v. GLADYS CITY OIL, GAS & MFG. CO. et al.

Supreme Court of Texas.

June 11, 1913.

Error to Court of Civil Appeals of First Supreme Judicial District.

Action by the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company and others against the Right of Way Oil Company and others. From a judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals (137 S. W. 171) reversing a judgment for defendants, defendants bring error. Affirmed.

Baker, Botts, Parker & Garwood, of Houston, Wear, Orgain & Butler and W. D. Gordon, all of Beaumont, and O. S. Parker, of Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs in error. D. Edward Greer, Chenault O'Brien, and George Chilton, all of Beaumont, for defendants in error.

BROWN, C. J.

This statement will be sufficient for the decision of the questions submitted to this court:

The plaintiffs in error are the Right of Way Oil Company, the Texas & New Orleans Railroad Company, and Oswald S. Parker, trustee. The Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company, the J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company, and the Gulf Pipe Line Company are defendants in error.

We copy from the well-prepared application for writ of error the following clear and comprehensive statement of the case:

"This suit was filed in the district court of Jefferson county, Tex., November 24, 1909, by the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company and J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company, as plaintiffs, against the Right of Way Oil Company, Texas & New Orleans Railroad Company, the Gulf Pipe Line Company, and Oswald S. Parker, trustee, being a suit by plaintiffs to establish their ownership and right of possession of a tract of land part of the John A. Veatch survey in Jefferson county, Tex., and for the title and possession of all oil produced therefrom, and for an injunction restraining the defendants, Texas & New Orleans Railroad Company, Right of Way Oil Company, and Oswald S. Parker, trustee, from drilling oil wells on said land and taking oil therefrom, and from asserting any right or claim thereto, and against the Gulf Pipe Line Company for the oil taken from said land by the other defendants and by them run into its pipe line. Pleadings of the parties are voluminous, and are contained in transcript, pages 2 to 40, inclusive; but it was alleged by both plaintiffs and defendants below, and admitted, that defendants below, plaintiffs in error here, held under a deed from S. H. Veatch to East Texas Railway Company, the Texas & New Orleans Railroad Company having succeeded to the title conveyed by said deed to East Texas Railway Company, and having made an operating contract for the developing of oil on the tract of land conveyed by said deed with Oswald S. Parker, trustee, and the Right of Way Oil Company having developed oil upon said land under the assignment of said operating contract. The effect of said deed is controlling in the case; plaintiffs in error contending that, under said deed, they have the right to develop, take, and use oil from the strip of land described in said deed, and defendants in error contending that no such right exists, but that the title and right to said oil is in them. The facts, as well as the pleadings, are quite fully stated in the opinion filed herein by the Court of Civil Appeals, and will not be restated here; however, the case depending upon the meaning of the deed from S. H. Veatch to East Texas Railway Company, we deem it proper to set same out in full, same being as follows: `State of Texas, Sabine County. Know all men by these presents: That I being the owner in fee of the following described tract of land, lying in Jefferson county, Texas, to wit: An equal undivided one-third of a tract of land containing 19,481,003 square varas, originally granted and titled by the government of Mexico to John A. Veatch as a colonist of Zavalla's Colony, near a place called Sour Springs in said county, and lying between the J. W. Bullock and Pelham Humphries league surveys, except 177 acres in the N. W. corner of said Veatch survey heretofore conveyed by my father John A. Veatch. For the consideration of one dollar to me in hand paid, and the further consideration of the benefits and advantages that will accrue to me by the construction of a railway over said tract of land, have and do hereby grant, sell and convey unto the East Texas Railway Company, for the purpose of constructing, operating and maintaining its railroad, the right of way, two hundred feet in width, over and upon the above-described tract of land; together with the right to take and use all the timber, earth, stone and mineral existing or that may be found within the right of way hereby granted. To have and to hold to said East Texas Railway Company and its successors, so long as the same or any part thereof may be occupied and used for the purpose of constructing, operating or maintaining its said railway. In witness whereof, I hereby sign my name, the 29th day of July, 1881. S. H. Veatch. Witness: James B. Nerrew.' (Acknowledgment follows.)

"Trial was had before the court without a jury, and judgment rendered on January 12, 1910, in the district court of Jefferson county in favor of the defendants, who are plaintiffs in error here, quieting them in their title and possession of the 200-foot right of way strip of land described in the above deed in accordance with the terms thereof, and establishing their right to take and appropriate all of the minerals, including oil extracted therefrom, etc. (Tr. pp. 40 to 42.) Plaintiffs in the court below appealed to, and the judgment of the trial court was reversed by, the Court of Civil Appeals for the First Supreme Judicial District at Galveston, and judgment therein rendered, as set forth on pages 25 to 26 in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, as follows, to wit: `First, that the Texas & New Orleans Railway Company have a right of way across the Veatch survey of 100 feet in width, except that part thereof through the Gladys City tract, as to which it has a right of way 200 feet in width. Second, that the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company has the fee-simple title to this land, subject to the easement, as aforesaid, of the Texas & New Orleans Railway Company, so long as the same may be used by it as and for railway purposes. Third, that the Texas & New Orleans Railway Company has no right to the oil or other minerals beneath the surface of said strip comprising its right of way as aforesaid, nor to sink wells and extract the same, but that such oil is the property of the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company, and of its lessee, the J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company. Fourth, that the said Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company and the said J. M. Guffey Petroleum Company have no right to go upon said right of way and occupy the same, for the purpose of sinking wells and extracting the oil. Fifth, that the said appellants recover of the appellees the value as found by the trial court of the oil extracted by the Right of Way Oil Company through the well bored by it on the right of way aforesaid. And, sixth, that the Gulf Pipe Line Company have judgment over against the Right of Way Oil Company for whatever amount it may be required to pay under judgment against it. Let the judgment be so entered. Reversed and rendered. [Signed] Reese, Associate Justice.'

"Motion for a rehearing was duly filed in said court by the appellees therein, who are plaintiffs in error here, which motion was overruled by said Court of Civil Appeals on, to wit, May 4, 1911.

"First Ground of Error.

"The Honorable Court of Civil Appeals erred, to the prejudice of appellees, in sustaining the first assignment of error of appellants, and in holding, in effect, that the deed from S. H. Veatch to East Texas Railway Company set out in that court's findings of fact, on page 7 of its opinion, granted merely a...