The Joplin-Erie Oil Company v. Buckwalter

• Decision Date: 11 March 1922
• Docket Number: 23,359
• Citation: 110 Kan. 756,205 P. 343
• Parties: THE JOPLIN-ERIE OIL COMPANY, Appellee, v. LAURA BUCKWALTER, Appellant
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

205 P. 343

110 Kan. 756

THE JOPLIN-ERIE OIL COMPANY, Appellee, v. LAURA BUCKWALTER, Appellant

No. 23,359

Supreme Court of Kansas

March 11, 1922

Decided January, 1922

Appeal from Neosho district court; SHELBY C. BROWN, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

1. QUIETING TITLE--Oil and Gas Lease--Mutual Mistake in Description of Land--Injunction. In an action to quiet title to an oil and gas lease and to enjoin the owner of the land from interfering with plaintiff's operations under the lease, the defense was that the lease had been fraudulently altered by the lessee. It was shown that in the description of the land there was an omission in the numbers of the section, township and range. Held, the evidence was sufficient to sustain a general finding to the effect that the omission was by the mutual mistake of the parties who understood at all times just what land was embraced in the lease.

2. SAME--Alteration of Lease Without Fraudulent Intent--Equitable Jurisdiction. The alteration being without fraudulent intent and merely expressing what otherwise would be supplied by intendment, a court of equity has jurisdiction to restore the instrument and enforce its original terms.

3. SAME. There was evidence sufficient to sustain a judgment in favor of plaintiff on the question of mistake, the intent with which the alteration was made, and to establish grounds for an injunction because of unjustifiable interference by defendant with plaintiff's operations under the lease.

R. B Smith, and C. M. Brobst, both of Chanute, for the appellant.

James A. Allen, and John J. Jones, both of Chanute, for the appellee.

OPINION

PORTER, J.:

Plaintiff brought the action to quiet title to an oil and gas lease and to enjoin defendant from interfering with the plaintiff operating under it. The court overruled a demurrer to plaintiff's evidence; the defendant elected to stand on the demurrer, and judgment was rendered on the evidence in favor of plaintiff, and the temporary injunction was made permanent. She appeals from the judgment.

The defendant, Laura Buckwalter, was the equitable owner of the lands, but the record title had stood for many years in the name of her nephew, B. T. Cass, who resided in Chicago. In June, 1917, Mrs. Buckwalter agreed that a lease should be executed to E. W. Moore and H. W. Loy, in consideration of the payment of $ 120 rental for one year and $ 5 for the trouble of having her nephew execute the lease. They paid her the money and the lease was executed on the 30th day of June, 1917. It was filed for record in Neosho county on July 12, 1917. Shortly thereafter E. W. Moore discovered that the description of the land in the lease omitted the numbers of the section, township and range. He thereupon inserted in the original lease the words and figures "in sec. 27, twp. 28, r. 20."

The lease provided that the lessees were to commence a well on the premises within one year, or pay $ 120 for each additional twelve months such beginning was delayed, and until a well was completed. A producing well was completed on the 24th of August, 1917. The lease required the lessees to pay the lessor "free of cost in the tanks or pipe line to which second party may connect their wells, the equal one-eighth part of all oil produced." The appellee, which became the owner by assignment of the lease, connected the well with the pipe line of the Prairie Oil and Gas Company, the only pipe line in that field, and filed a division order directing the company to pay one-eighth of all the oil produced from the premises to Mrs. Buckwalter. Her share of the royalty from this well has ever since remained to her credit on the books of the pipe-line company.

Sometime in March, 1919, there was filed for record a deed, dated April 28, 1903, to Mrs. Buckwalter from her nephew conveying to her the legal title to the land. Evidently about this time she conceived the idea that the defect in the description enabled her to ignore the lease. At all events on December 5, 1919, she wrote a letter to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company notifying it to cease pumping or taking oil from the property, stating that she was the sole owner, and had leased it to no...