Snodgrass v. Koen
| Citation | 96 S.E. 606,82 W.Va. 337 |
| Decision Date | 23 April 1918 |
| Docket Number | 3460. |
| Parties | SNODGRASS v. KOEN ET AL. |
| Court | Supreme Court of West Virginia |
Submitted April 9, 1918.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 18, 1918.
Syllabus by the Court.
Where there is a prior oil and gas lease in the usual form upon a tract of land, and the lessor by deed grants to another all the royalty interest in the oil and rentals from gas wells and in addition confers upon him exclusive authority to drill for oil and gas after the termination of the prior lease without restriction or limitation upon the exercise of such right, the deed vests in the grantee the fee-simple title to the oil and gas in place in the land.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Wetzel County.
Suit for partition by Charles I. Snodgrass against J. Turner Koen and others. Demurrer to bill sustained, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Glen Snodgrass, of New Martinsville, and C. A. Snodgrass, of Mannington, for appellant.
W. S Meredith, of Fairmont, for appellees.
Claiming title to seven-eighths of the oil and gas contained within a tract of 56 acres of land, part of a tract of 69 acres jointly owned by Daniel S. Remley and his wife, Mary A Remley, in Wetzel county, and conceding to the defendants title to the other one-eighth, plaintiff brought this suit for the partition by a sale of the minerals and division of the proceeds in the foregoing proportions; and, being denied relief upon demurrer to the bill, he prosecutes this appeal.
The Remleys leased the 69 acres to Samuel S. Teagarden July 10 1894, to explore for, and if found to produce, oil and gas upon the usual terms and conditions reserving to themselves one-eighth oil royalty and $200 annually for each gas producing well drilled, if the gas be marketed off the land; requiring the drilling of a well within one year, and if not so drilled the payment of an annual rental of $60 in lieu of drilling until a well was completed or the lease surrendered for cancellation. This lease Teagarden assigned to the defendant A. Jackson Hays, March 1, 1895. Four days later the Remleys executed to J. T. Koen, Hays, and Teagarden a deed granting to them jointly for $50 one-eighth part of the oil and gas underlying and that may be produced from the 69-acre tract with this provision:
"If the said land is not operated under the lease now on the same land the said second parties (the grantees) are to have the rights to operate the said land and if the lease now on the said land is surrendered then the parties of the first part do grant unto the second parties the right to operate the same land on this lease and deed royalty and no one else to have the right to lease or operate the same."
Daniel S. Remley, who died some time in 1895, devised his moiety interest in the 69 acres to his wife, Mary A. Remley, whereby she became the sole owner of the entire tract, and April 1, 1896, conveyed 13 1/2 acres, part thereof, to J. W. Roberts, and June 25, 1903, the residue, which by survey was ascertained to be 56 acres, to Zora Cox, who, having intermarried with Edward T. Beatty, united with him March 11, 1913, in a deed for the 56 acres to W. G. Snodgrass, through whom plaintiff on August 5, 1916, acquired such title in the oil and gas in the 56 acres as he now seeks to have partitioned in this suit. In the meantime--to be exact, on January 25, 1899--Mrs. Remley executed to the Philadelphia Company of West Virginia, a corporation, a lease in the usual form and with the usual reservation of the one-eighth royalty and gas well rentals for the production of oil and gas upon the 56 acres.
No tests have been made to discover the presence of oil or gas on any part of the tract, either under the authority of the lease to Teagarden or to the Philadelphia Company or of the grant to Teagarden, Hays, and Koen or any other person under any lease or by either of the Remleys. The deed of Mrs. Remley to Zora Cox was made and accepted upon the understanding and agreement:
"That as the party of the first part and her late husband having conveyed by deed certain coal, oil and gas rights in the land, the same is hereby excepted from this conveyance so far as they are conveyed by a valid conveyance."
As these deeds and leases were admitted to record and recorded in the proper office of the county in which the land lies with reasonable promptness, they operated as constructive notice of their contents and provisions to purchasers proposing to deal or treat with the consecutive owners of the land conveyed or incumbered.
The plaintiff must therefore be presumed to know what an...
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