Sun Oil Co. v. Burford
| Decision Date | 02 February 1942 |
| Docket Number | No. 9962.,9962. |
| Citation | 124 F.2d 467 |
| Parties | SUN OIL CO. et al. v. BURFORD et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
J. B. Robertson and J. A. Rauhut, both of Austin, Tex., for appellants.
James P. Hart, Ed. Roy Simmons, and F. L. Kuykendall, all of Austin, Tex., for appellees.
Before HOLMES and McCORD, Circuit Judges, and DAWKINS, District Judge.
Sun Oil Company filed its complaint against the Railroad Commission of Texas, G. E. Burford, and X. Y. Z. Oil Company, seeking the cancellation of a permit issued to Burford for the drilling of four wells upon a tract of 2.33 acres of land in the East Texas oil fields, having dimensions of approximately 49 feet East and West by 2.100 feet North and South. In the alternative, it sought to enjoin the operation of such wells until the Commission, after notice and hearing, should fix the allowable to prevent this small tract from getting more than its full share of the oil in competition with complainant's tract of fifty acres on the West. Magnolia Petroleum Company owning fifty acres adjoining defendant's tract on the East, intervened and joined in the prayer of plaintiff for relief.
Jurisdiction was alleged to exist both because of diversity of citizenship, and the presence of a Federal question.
The petition charged that the Commission has, in effect, disregarded and violated its own rules and regulations in issuing the permit, and that the defendants are taking the oil in such quantities as to drain the lands of complainants and intervenors, resulting in gross discrimination, and the taking of appellants' property in violation of Texas laws and constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
The court below, while maintaining its jurisdiction, decided that it was controlled by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the two Rowan & Nichols Oil Company cases, Railroad Comm. of Texas v. Rowan & Nichols Oil Co., 310 U. S. 573, 60 S.Ct. 1021, 84 L.Ed. 1368, and Id., 311 U.S. 570, 61 S.Ct. 343, 85 L.Ed. 358, which it construed to require in "these conservation cases, the parties should be relegated to the State courts." For this reason, the complaint and intervention were dismissed.
In those cases, jurisdiction was invoked solely upon the ground of a Federal question, since there was no diversity of citizenship. In the first, at page 580 of 310 U.S., 60 S.Ct. 1021, 61 S.Ct. at page 66, 84 L.Ed. 1368, the court said that "the only question open to a federal tribunal is whether the state action complained of has transgressed whatever restrictions the vague contours of the Due Process Clause may place upon the exercise of the state's regulatory power." But upon further consideration, this expression was stricken, and it was said that "the presence of a federal question may also open up state issues * * *." This was, no doubt, because of the uniformity of past jurisprudence that once a Federal Court takes jurisdiction of a case, it will decide all issues, including those under State law. In the amendment to that opinion (311 U.S. 614, 61 S.Ct. 66, 85 L.Ed. 390), it was said that the Texas courts had not determined whether "independent judgment" could be exercised by the courts in determining the reasonableness of the Commission's action; nevertheless, it was felt that the State decisions otherwise indicated that the "standard of `reasonable basis' under the statute opens up the same range of inquiry as the respondent in effect asserted to exist in his claims under the Due Process Clause"; and since it had been found in the original opinion that the showing made in attempting to establish a lack of due process was insufficient, the court would not pursue the matter further "under the guise of enforcing the State statute." That seems to be the reasonable interpretation of what the court meant. The language used was: "What ought not to be done by the Federal courts when the Due Process Clause is invoked ought not to be attempted by these courts under the guise of enforcing a state statute." In any event, it reversed the lower court's finding of discrimination, violation of the Commission's rules, etc., and reserved the right of comp...
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Sun Oil Co. v. Burford
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Burford v. Sun Oil Co.
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