Stradley v. Magnolia Petroleum Co.
| Decision Date | 29 September 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 5332.,5332. |
| Citation | 155 S.W.2d 649 |
| Parties | STRADLEY et al. v. MAGNOLIA PETROLEUM CO. et al. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Appeal from District Court, Hutchinson County; Jack Allen, Judge.
Suit by Alice A. Stradley and husband against the Magnolia Petroleum Company and another to recover title to and possession of land, and to remove alleged cloud cast on title by mineral lease, and for other relief. From an adverse judgment, the plaintiffs appeal.
Affirmed.
Umphres & Umphres, of Amarillo, and K. H. Dally, of Borger, for appellants.
Walace Hawkins and Earl A. Brown, both of Dallas, and Morgan, Culton, Morgan & Britain, of Amarillo, for appellee Magnolia Petroleum Co.
Underwood, Johnson, Dooley & Wilson, of Amarillo, for appellee Southwest Oil & Development Co.
On March 6, 1931 the Southwest Oil and Development Company, a foreign corporation, granted, sold and conveyed to Wilbur C. Hawk Section 24, Certificate 110, issued to the Day Land and Cattle Company, patented to P. J. Lawless, containing 387.83 acres of land situated in Hutchinson County, Texas. This deed conveyed the surface rights and contained a reservation or exception expressed in the following language: "But all of the minerals in and under and that may be produced from said land and all mineral rights in and to said land and full rights of ingress and egress in and to and from and over said land for the purpose of prospecting for, developing, producing, transporting, and storing any and all minerals and mineral products that may be produced from said land are hereby excepted from this conveyance and reserved unto the grantor herein, it not being intended that any minerals or mineral rights either present or prospective in or to said land shall pass to the grantee hereby."
On April 28, 1931 Wilbur C. Hawk and wife, Hallie Hawk, conveyed said section of land to Alice A. Stradley by a proper deed which contained the same exception and reservation expressed in the identical language found in the deed from the Southwest Oil and Development Company to Wilbur C. Hawk.
On July 12, 1934 the Southwest Oil and Development Company leased and let to the Magnolia Petroleum Company for a period of ten years said Section 24 for the purpose of investigating, exploring, prospecting, drilling, mining and operating for and producing oil and gas and all other minerals, laying pipe lines, storing oil, building tanks, power stations, telephone lines and other structures to produce, save and take care of, treat, store and transport said minerals and other products obtained from said section and for the housing and otherwise caring for its employees. The lessor retained the usual and customary royalty, provided for delay rentals of $1 per acre in lieu of drilling operations. The Magnolia Company payed the delay rentals until December, 1937 when it entered upon the section under its lease and began operation for the development of oil and gas by drilling a water well to supply the necessary water for drilling oil wells. It obtained water and shortly thereafter began and prosecuted a continuous program of development and on or about October 8, 1940 it had ten producing oil wells on said section of land. The wells were pumpers and to facilitate the production of oil the company constructed a power station on the land with rod lines extending to each well in order to pump the oil from said well. It also constructed storage tanks to use in storing the oil pumped, together with the necessary pipe lines for handling such oil.
On October 17, 1939 Alice A. Stradley and her husband, W. B. Stradley, hereinafter called appellants, instituted this suit in the District Court of Hutchinson County, Texas, against the Magnolia Petroleum Company, hereinafter called the Magnolia, and the Southwest Oil & Development Company, hereinafter called the Southwest, and who are the appellees, to recover title and possession to said section of land together with the improvements placed thereon, to remove the alleged cloud cast on their title by the lease executed to the Magnolia by the Southwest, to recover the rental value of the use of the land by the appellees, to recover damages for the water which they claimed was a part of the land and covered by the conveyance to them and which they asserted had been converted by the appellees for use in drilling wells and the development of the oil on the land. They also sought an injunction to restrain the appellees from appropriating water obtained from the well and also from using the property as they had been doing theretofore and sought to recover actual and exemplary damages against the appellees as trespassers. They pleaded the purchase of the land from the Southwest by Wilbur C. Hawk, the reservation and exception in his deed to the oil and gas and mineral rights, the deed from Wilbur C. Hawk to Alice A. Stradley with the same reservations and exceptions and the mineral lease from the Southwest to the Magnolia. They asserted, however, that the reservation in the deeds did not include any of the rights not covered therein and did not reserve to the lessor or lessee the right to use any part of the land for any purpose or to any extent not necessary to protect the lessor and lessee in the minerals and mineral rights and in ingress and egress to the property so as to allow such lessor or lessee the full enjoyment of the mineral rights covered by the reservation and conveyed by the lease, but asserted that such exception did not reserve the water which they claim is not a mineral.
The Magnolia answered by general demurrer, special exceptions, general denial; set up the reservations in the deeds by and under which appellants held the surface rights but alleged that such reservations reserved to the Southwest the title to the minerals and mineral rights in the land, authorized it to execute the oil and gas lease to the Magnolia for the purpose of investigating, prospecting and developing the oil and that the surface of the land was acquired by appellants with both constructive and actual knowledge that the Southwest reserved the right to cause the development of its minerals by the usual and customary methods.
The Southwest adopted the demurrers and exceptions of the Magnolia, pleaded a general denial, asserted that it was the owner of the entire Section 24 when it deeded it to Wilbur C. Hawk, by which instrument it conveyed only the surface rights in the land; pleaded the reservation and exception and the effect thereof.
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