The Eastern Ohio Oil Company v. McEvoy

• Decision Date: 06 April 1907
• Docket Number: 14,960
• Citation: 89 P. 1048,75 Kan. 515
• Parties: THE EASTERN OHIO OIL COMPANY v. W. W. MCEVOY
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

89 P. 1048

75 Kan. 515

THE EASTERN OHIO OIL COMPANY v. W. W. MCEVOY

No. 14,960

Supreme Court of Kansas

April 6, 1907

Decided January, 1907.

Error from Wilson district court; LEANDER STILLWELL, judge.

STATEMENT.

THE Eastern Ohio Oil Company held a lease granting it the right under conditions expressed therein to drill for oil and gas upon certain lands belonging to another. C. A. Kellar made a contract with the company to drill a well to the depth of 1200 feet, unless oil or gas was found at a less depth, for which the company was to pay him $ 1 per foot, and if he failed to complete the well the company was to pay him nothing. After drilling to the depth of about 800 feet, and before finding oil or gas, he abandoned the well and the contract.

McEvoy was a laborer employed by Kellar to work at the drilling. Not having been paid anything for his labor, he filed a mechanic's lien upon the land and served notices upon the owner of the land and also upon the owner of the lease. Suit was brought to foreclose this alleged lien upon the lease and upon certain property belonging to the lessee, consisting of the piping and casing placed in the well as the drilling progressed. Kellar, the contractor, the owner of the land and the Eastern Ohio Oil Company, as lessee, were all made defendants. There was a trial to the court and judgment was rendered for the plaintiff against the contractor for $ 162.50, declaring the judgment a lien upon the oil-and-gas lease and the privileges pertaining thereto, and upon the piping and casing used in and about the well. The decree provided that the lease for oil and gas upon the lands and the piping and casing should be sold to satisfy the judgment. The company seeks to reverse this judgment.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

MECHANIC'S LIEN--Interest of Lessee under Oil-and-gas Lease. One who performs labor in drilling an oil- or gas-well on lands in which the owner of the well has no interest beyond that acquired by the ordinary oil-and-gas lease authorizing an entry upon the lands to explore for oil or gas cannot obtain a mechanic's lien for such labor which will attach to the lease or to personal property belonging to the lessee and left upon the land.

S. S. Kirkpatrick, for plaintiff in error.

Hudson & Sheedy, for defendant in error.

OPINION

PORTER, J.:

Can one who performs labor in drilling an oil- or gas-well on lands in which the owner of the well has no interest, except as holder of the ordinary oil-and-gas lease authorizing entry for the purpose of exploring for oil and gas, obtain a mechanic's lien upon the leasehold interest or upon personal property belonging to the lessee which remains upon the land?

In some states there are statutory provisions extending mechanics' liens to leasehold estates, but regardless of such provisions it seems to be settled that the word "owner" is not limited in its meaning to an owner of the fee. It has been held that a person in possession of real estate under a verbal promise of a conveyance to him in fee simple is an "owner." (Drug Co. v Brown, 46 Kan. 543, 26 P. 1019.) The term also includes an owner of a leasehold estate. In Hathaway v. Davis & Rankin, 32 Kan. 693, 5 P. 29, it was held that a lien for materials and labor may attach to a leasehold estate, and that such a lien attached to the buildings, fixtures and materials placed thereon by the tenant. (See, also, Choteau et al. v. Thompson & Campbell, 2...