Texas Co. v. Lee

• Decision Date: 17 December 1941
• Docket Number: No. 7748.,7748.
• Citation: 157 S.W.2d 628
• Parties: TEXAS CO. v. LEE et al.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

157 S.W.2d 628

TEXAS CO. v. LEE et al.

No. 7748.

Supreme Court of Texas.

December 17, 1941.

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

Suit of trespass to try title by W. Edward Lee against the Texas Company and others for title and possession of a lease-hold interest. A judgment adverse to the Texas Company was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, 135 S.W.2d 180, and the Texas Company brings error.

Reversed and remanded in part, and affirmed in part.

John C. Jackson, Wm. E. Loose, and H. R. Wilson, all of Houston, for plaintiff in error.

Wynne & Wynne and Lee & Porter, all of Longview, for defendants in error.

SHARP, Justice.

W. Edward Lee filed this suit in form of trespass to try title, including pleas of five and ten years statutes of limitation, against The Texas Company and others, for title to and possession of a seven-eighths leasehold interest in and to a 1.86 acre tract of land, alleged to be located in the John Blair Survey in Gregg County. The case was tried before the court without a jury, and judgment was rendered in favor of W. Edward Lee. The Texas Company was the only party that appealed to the Court of Civil Appeals at Texarkana, and the judgment of the trial court was affirmed. 135 S.W.2d 180.

The Texas Company contends that it affirmatively appears from the undisputed evidence that the only title to the land in controversy, and with which W. Edward Lee sought to connect himself, was such title as G. C. Strong and wife may have acquired, and that such title passed by mesne conveyances into Tidal Oil Company. It is further contended by The Texas Company that the only passage of such title, if any, from Tidal Oil Company into Marathon Oil Company and Tide Water Oil Company, through and under which W. Edward Lee claimed, was by reason of the recital in the release of oil payment from Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company to Tide Water Oil Company, dated February 28, 1934, to the effect that Tidal Oil Company had "by amendment to its Articles of Incorporation changed its name to and is now Tide Water Oil Company," and that such recital was incompetent and insufficient to show or effect transfer of title out of Tidal Oil Company into W. Edward Lee, as The Texas Company was a stranger to such transaction and such instrument was not an ancient one; and that, therefore, W. Edward Lee failed to show title in himself and is not entitled to recover in this suit.

The main contest for the leasehold interest above described was between W. Edward Lee and The Texas Company; which Company answered with a general demurrer, plea of not guilty, general denial, and special pleas of limitation of title. The trial court found that the land in controversy was a part of the Blair Survey, and was embraced within the field notes of a larger tract conveyed by one Thurmond and wife in 1904 to C. G. Strong and wife; that the Strongs' possession of the land thereafter matured into a five-year limitation title; that they were the owners of such title when they executed an instrument conveying a seven-eighths leasehold estate, covering 113 acres out of this survey, to the Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company; and that through mesne conveyances W. Edward Lee became the owner of the leasehold estate covering the strip in controversy.

It is assumed, for the purposes of this opinion, that title by limitation had been established in C. G. Strong and wife.

Plaintiff sought to establish his claim to the land by introducing a chain of title containing the following duly recorded instruments:

1. Oil and gas lease from C. G. Strong and wife to Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company.

2. Assignment of the above lease to Tidal Oil Company; which assignment reserved to the Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company an oil payment of $1,000,000, to be paid out of one-third of the seven-eighths mineral interest, and retained a lien to secure the payment thereof.

3. Release of said oil payment and lien by Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company to Tide Water Oil Company; in which instrument it was recited that the Tidal Oil Company had by amendment of its charter changed its name to Tide Water Oil Company.

4. Quitclaim deed from Marathon Oil Company and Tide Water Oil Company to W. Edward Lee; such deed reciting that Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company had changed its name to Marathon Oil Company, but making no reference to the change in the name of Tidal Oil Company.

The trial court found that: "The plaintiff holds by consecutive chain of assignments from and under the lessee (Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Co.) in said oil and gas lease."

The controlling question for determination here is whether or not the recitals in the release introduced in evidence, concerning the $1,000,000 oil payment and its attendant lien, from the Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company to Tide Water Oil Company, and stating that the Tidal Oil Company had changed its corporate name to Tide Water Oil Company, are competent evidence to prove that such corporate name had in fact been changed, and also to establish as a fact that the title to the minerals was in the Tide Water Oil Company, through which W. Edward Lee claims. In this connection, it must be borne in mind that such recital as to change of the corporate name was not made by either the Tidal Oil Company or the Tide Water Company, but was made by the Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Company; that The Texas Company was a stranger to such instruments; and that the release, being dated February, 1934, was not an ancient instrument.

In this State, in a suit for trespass to try title, a plea of not guilty casts upon the plaintiff the burden of proving his own title in order to recover the property. Starr v. Schoellkopf Co., 131 Tex. 263, 113 S.W. 2d 1227; 41 Tex.Jur., p. 482, § 24. It, therefore, was essential that W. Edward Lee prove by competent evidence that Tide...