State ex rel. Com'rs of Land Office v. Butler

• Decision Date: 08 December 1987
• Docket Number: No. 51609,51609
• Citation: 753 P.2d 1334
• Parties: The STATE of Oklahoma, ex rel., COMMISSIONERS OF the LAND OFFICE, Appellant, v. Claude R. BUTLER, Appellee.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 1334

753 P.2d 1334

1987 OK 123

The STATE of Oklahoma, ex rel., COMMISSIONERS OF the LAND OFFICE, Appellant, v. Claude R. BUTLER, Appellee.

No. 51609.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Dec. 8, 1987.

Dissenting Opinion May 24, 1988.

Rehearing Denied May 24, 1988.

An Appeal from the District Court of Craig County; William J. Whistler, District Judge.

Owner sought to remove a cloud on his estate in coal and on minerals other than oil and gas, its constituents and components. The trial court sustained owner's motion for summary judgment. Commissioners of the Land Office appeal.

AFFIRMED.

Paul DeGraffenreid and R.R. Williamson, Jr., Oklahoma City, for appellant.

John S. Athens, Russell H. Harbaugh, Jr., Douglas L. Inhofe, Conners, Winters, Ballaine, Barry & McGowen, Tulsa, for appellee.

Lee R. West, J. Clayton, LaGrone, Richard A. Paschal, James E. Green, Jr., Hall, Estill, Hardwick, Gable, Collingsworth & Nelson, P.C., for amicus curiae.

SIMMS, Justice.

The issue presented by this appeal is whether a reservation of an interest in "oil, gas and other mineral rights" includes coal. We hold it does not. Our holding is consistent with a long and unanimous line of cases. Our earlier opinion in this matter has previously been ordered withdrawn. Rehearing is granted, and this opinion is substituted therefor.

Claude Butler, the appellee, brought action to quiet title in the rights to the coal on land he owned in fee simple. His predecessors in interest acquired the property by three separate patents from the Commissioners of the Land Office by public sale of state-owned lands with notice as provided by law. One patent reserved to the state "an undivided fifty percentum of all oil, gas, and other mineral rights" and the other two patents contained reservations of "an undivided fifty percentum of all oil, gas and other minerals and mineral rights". The notice of sale stated that the land would be sold subject to the state's reservation of fifty percent of "all the oil, gas and other mineral rights". The Commissioners counterclaimed to quiet the state's claimed interest in the coal based on the reservations.

Mr. Butler sought summary judgment arguing that the phrase "oil, gas and other minerals" has an established meaning in Oklahoma; that it includes only oil and gas and other minerals produced as a component or constituent thereof. The Commissioners disagreed, urged the Court to hold that the phrase was ambiguous and to allow extrinsic evidence of the intent of the original parties at the time of the conveyances to be introduced.

The trial court found no significant distinction between the language of the patents, held that the reservations were unambiguous and disallowed any extrinsic evidence of intent. Based on our decision in Panhandle Cooperative Royalty Co. v. Cunningham, Okl., 495 P.2d 108 (1972), the trial court held that the state had reserved only fifty percent of the oil, gas and minerals produced as constituents and components thereof, whether hydrocarbon or non-hydrocarbon, and that no other mineral including coal, was reserved by the state. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Mr. Butler and quieted title to all the coal in him.

The Commissioners bring this appeal contending primarily that the trial court erred by disallowing extrinsic evidence to show intent of the original parties. They argue that the phrase "oil, gas and other minerals" is ambiguous and that extrinsic evidence should therefore be allowed to show the intent of the original conveying parties. The same arguments have been presented and rejected repeatedly by this Court.

The phrase "oil, gas and other minerals" is, of course, common in the oil and gas industry. It, and its close variants, are standard terms which appear in very early oil and gas leases, and have commonly been used in fee conveyances and reservations, such as those before us today. The meaning of "oil, gas and other minerals" has been the subject of frequent and spirited litigation nationwide as well as in Oklahoma. Questions as to which unspecified minerals are included within the phrase have been answered with differing results under different rationales. See, for instance the annotation Grant, Lease, Exception, or Reservation of "Oil, Gas, and Other Minerals", or the Like, as Including Coal or Metallic Ores, 59 A.L.R.3rd 116 (1974).

We have a consistent line of cases which offer no possible result except that a reservation of "oil, gas and other minerals", standing alone, does not include coal. See, e.g., Barker v. Campbell-Ratcliff Land Co., 64 Okl. 249, 167 P. 468 (1917)--reservation of "mineral rights" includes oil and gas; Beck v. Harvey, 196 Okl. 270, 164 P.2d 399 (1945)--reservation of "mineral royalty" does not include gravel; State, ex rel., Com'rs of Land Office v. Hendrix, 196 Okl. 596, 167 P.2d 43 (1946)--conveyance of an interest in and to all the oil, petroleum gas, coal, asphalt and all other minerals of every kind and character does not include gravel; Cronkhite v. Falkenstein, Okl., 352 P.2d 396 (1960)--mineral deed for "oil, gas and other minerals" does not include gypsum rock; and Holland v. Dolese Co., Okl., 540 P.2d 549 (1975)--reservation of an interest in "the mineral rights" did not include quarried limestone.

In Oklahoma we have relied primarily on the rule of ejusdem generis to determine the scope of such mineral conveyances. Ejusdem generis is simply a rule of interpretation. It gives guidance to the ordinary insight that when specific words are followed by general words those specific words restrict the meaning of the general. Thus, where the phrase "other minerals" follows the enumeration of particular classes of minerals such as oil and gas, the general words will be construed as applicable only to minerals of the same kind or class as those specifically named. Wolf v. Blackwell Oil & Gas Co., 77 Okl. 81, 186 P. 484 (1920).

It is axiomatic that the interpretation of a written contract which is free from ambiguity is a judicial function and that oral testimony or other extrinsic evidence is not admissible to determine its meaning. The rules of interpretation of contract, both statutory as set forth in 15 O.S.1981, § 151, et seq., and non-statutory rules such ejusdem generis, are for use by the court to determine whether an ambiguity exists. An ambiguity in a written instrument allowing parol testimony does not appear until application of pertinent rules of interpretation to the face of the instrument leaves it genuinely uncertain which one of two or more meanings is the proper meaning. Whether words of a contract or conveyance or other written instrument are ambiguous and therefore will support the need for extrinsic evidence is determined as a matter of law by the trial court. See, e.g., Van Horn Drug Co. v. Noland, Okl., 323 P.2d 366 (1958); Panhandle Cooperative Royalty Co. v. Cunningham, supra; Morgan v. Wheeler, Ks., 150 Kan. 667, 95 P.2d 320 (1939); R & P Enterprises v. LaGuarta, Gavrel & Kirk, Inc., Tex., 596 S.W.2d 517 (1980). Appellants' suggestion that the rule of ejusdem generis is a rule to solve an ambiguity and therefore extrinsic evidence should be allowed, is in error. This rule, like all rules of interpretation, exists to aid the trial court's determination of whether or not an ambiguity is present.

There is no longer room for question in Oklahoma. The rule of law has evolved in this state that "oil, gas and other minerals" is not ambiguous. "Oil, gas and other minerals" is not a description of the entire mineral estate. The phrase has a certain and definite meaning: it includes only oil and gas and those minerals produced as constituents and components thereof.

In Panhandle supra, the Court upheld the trial court's determination that a mineral deed granting interest in "oil, gas and other minerals" was not ambiguous and that extrinsic evidence of the parties' intent as to the inclusion of metallic minerals such as gold, silver and copper was inadmissible. There the defendants had also argued that the phrase was ambiguous and included "all minerals", and that extrinsic evidence should be allowed to show the parties' intention to include metallic minerals. The Court there did not rely on ejusdem generis, although it recognized it as a rule of construction which is a useful part of our law, but the Court did cite and rely on Cronkhite v. Falkenstein, Okl., 352 P.2d 396 (1960), which was an ejusdem generis case.

In Panhandle the Court conducted a historical review of litigation on the issue which left no doubt that the phrase "other minerals" resulted from early litigation over rights to other distinct substances produced at the well head--particularly casinghead gas--under mineral deeds and conveyances of interest in "oil and/or gas" and "oil and gas". The phrase "other minerals" has a special purpose in extending the connotation of "oil and gas".

Applying the statutory rules of interpretation, 15 O.S.1961, § 151, et seq., the Court held that the deed in question granted interest in oil and gas and other minerals produced as oil or gas or produced as a component or constituent thereof whether hydrocarbon or non-hydrocarbon, but did not grant any other mineral or the right to produce any other mineral, including copper, silver, gold, or any other types of metallic ores or metallic minerals. Panhandle, supra at 113.

Following Panhandle the Court decided Allen v. Farmers Union Cooperative Royalty Co., Okl., 538 P.2d 204 (1975), where metallic minerals were once again the subject of a quiet title action brought to determine whether they were included in a reservation of "all oil, gas and mineral rights". The same arguments which were presented and rejected in Panhandle and are now presented in the instant case, were before the Court in Allen, and were summarily rejected.

The appellants there criticized the decision in Panhandle, and contended that the reservation is unambiguous and clearly...