Union Missionary Baptist Church v. Fyke

• Decision Date: 02 February 1937
• Docket Number: Case Number: 23751
• Citation: 64 P.2d 1203,1937 OK 85,179 Okla. 102
• Parties: UNION MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH v. FYKE et al.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

1937 OK 85

64 P.2d 1203

179 Okla. 102

UNION MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH v. FYKE et al.

Case Number: 23751

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided: February 2, 1937

Syllabus

¶0 COVENANTS - Restrictions in Deed to Church Site Held to Prohibit Use for Production of Oil and that Grantee Had no Right to Proceeds of Royalty Interest in Well Drilled by Lessee of Grantee.

Where the owner of a tract of land, by conveyance in form of a general warranty deed, but containing the following additional clause: "This deed is made expressly upon the condition that the said premises herein granted are to be used exclusively for a site for the erection and maintenance of a church building for the said Union Missionary Baptist Church and whenever the same shall hereafter cease to be used for such purpose, this deed shall become void and the title to the said premises shall revert to the grantors herein, their heirs and assigns," conveys a small parcel out of one corner of the tract of land to the trustees of a church, the use of the parcel so conveyed for the production of oil or gas by the grantees or their lessee, while the same is being used as a site for such church building, is wrongful and in violation of the restrictions as to use contained in the deed, and the grantee therein cannot successfully assert title to the proceeds of the royalty interest in an oil well drilled by a lessee of the grantee, in violation of said clause.

Appeal from District Court, Pottawatomie County; Hal Johnson, Judge.

Action by the Union Missionary Baptist Church against G. W. Fyke et al. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Suits & Disney, for plaintiff in error.

C.M. Oakes, H.T. Wolfe, Park Wyatt, Harper & Lee, W.N. Stokes, Geo. W. Grant, W.C. Hall, Floyd L. Rheam, and Blakeney & Ambrister, for defendants in error.

RILEY, J.

¶1 This is an appeal from a judgment sustaining a demurrer and dismissing the petition in an action brought by plaintiff in error to quiet title to or determine ownership of certain oil and gas royalties accrued from a well drilled upon a tract of land conveyed to plaintiff in error with certain provisions and restrictions.

¶2 On and prior to February 16, 1912, G.W. Fyke and L.L. Fyke, husband and wife, were the owners of 160 acres of land in Pottawatomie county. On that date they executed a warranty deed to the plaintiff, the Union Missionary Baptist Church, conveying to said church a tract of land containing 1 1/4 acres in the northwest corner of said 160 acres of land. The deed was in the usual form, except directly after the description there was inserted the following clause:

"This deed is made expressly upon the condition that the said premises herein granted are to be used exclusively for a site for the erection and maintenance of a church building for the said Union Missionary Baptist Church and whenever the same shall hereafter cease to be used for such purpose, this deed shall become void and the title to the said premises shall revert to the grantors herein, their heirs and assigns."

¶3 The church went into possession under the deed, built a church thereon, and has ever since maintained the church.

¶4 Some years later the trustees of the church leased this tract of land for oil and gas development. A well was drilled by the lessees and oil was obtained. At the time this action was commenced, royalties from said well had accumulated in the amount of approximately $25,000. Fyke and his wife had also leased the N.W. 1/4 of the 160 acres to the Magnolia Petroleum Company.

¶5 The Magnolia Petroleum Company brought suit in the United States court against the lessees of the church to enjoin them from drilling on the church lot.

¶6 Fyke and wife filed a cross-bill in that case, alleging that the church and its lessees had no right to drill for oil and gas on the church lot, and asked that their title thereto be quieted subject to the lease of the Magnolia Petroleum Company.

¶7 No effective order of injunction was obtained pending that action until its final determination in the Circuit Court of Appeals. Magnolia Petroleum Co. v. Suits, 40 Fed. (2d) 161. In the meantime the church's lessees drilled a well on the church lot from which accrued the royalties.

¶8 The litigation in the federal court resulted in a decree in favor of the Magnolia Petroleum Company as against the church's lessee. But the cross-bill of Fyke and wife was dismissed without prejudice, because it appeared that all proper parties to the crossbill were citizens and residents of Oklahoma, and the federal court was therefore without jurisdiction of the subject matter raised by the cross-bill. 40 Fed. (2d), supra.

¶9 Thereafter this action was commenced by the church against Fyke and wife and the other defendants who had purchased royalty interests from Fyke.

¶10 It appears that the royalty from the well on the church lot had and has been withheld, probably because of the litigation in the federal court. The claim of plaintiff is that Fyke and his wife and the other defendants have no right, title, or interest in or to the oil and gas rights and royalty in said land, but have prevented royalties being paid to plaintiff. Plaintiff prays that title to said royalty be quieted in the church, for an accounting, and for a reformation of the deed in certain particulars.

¶11 Defendants demurred to the amended petition of plaintiff. The demurrers were sustained, and plaintiff electing to stand upon the amended petition, the same was dismissed and plaintiff appeals.

¶12 If we are to follow the reasoning and the rule of law announced by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, the judgment of the trial court in sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the petition must be sustained.

¶13 Substantially the same contention is here made by plaintiff as was made by it and its lessees throughout the litigation in the federal court. That is, that by the deed the church obtained a determinable fee to the plot of ground involved; that the condition inserted in the deed created a qualified or determinable fee, and that inasmuch as a church had been erected and maintained thereon, the fee title was vested in the church, and the right to lease the land for oil and gas and retain the royalty accumulating under the lease follows as a matter of law, and that such use of the land was not an improper one.

¶14 There is, however, a further contention in that it is now claimed the deed is in its terms ambiguous in the matter of the effect to be given the word "exclusively" as used in the special provision. That is, whether the special provision means that the premises are to be used exclusively for a site for the erection and maintenance of a church building, or whether to be used by the Union Missionary Church as a denomination, and by none other.

¶15 There is no ambiguity in this respect. The provision clearly means that the premises are to be used exclusively as a site for the erection and maintenance of a church building, and exclusively by and for the Union Missionary Baptist Church, and that whenever the same shall cease to be used for that purpose, the deed becomes void and the title to the premises shall revert to the grantors or their assigns.

¶16 There has never been a contention that the premises have ceased to be used for "such purposes." There has never been a claim that the interest in the premises conveyed by the deed has been forfeited.

¶17 The question and the sole question is the right of the church, through its trustees, to use the land for the production of oil and gas. Was this a wrongful use of the premises, and if so, is plaintiff still entitled to the money derived from the royalty provided for in the lease?

¶18 The terms "base," "qualified," and "terminable fee" are used interchangeably.

¶19 The qualifications annexed to a base, qualified, or determinable fee may be either one of two kinds. It may be a qualification which attaches itself to be use of the land, so that the estate is held to be granted for that use and purpose only; and on cessation of the use the estate expires; or it may be one which is concerned with the happening of a more strictly collateral event, in that case it leaves the use of the estate free for any purpose, but limits its existence only by the event contemplated, or to the continuance of the state of affairs contemplated at the time of the grant. Jordan v. Goldman, 1 Okla. 406, 34 P. 371.

¶20 Here we have a plain qualification of the use of the land, but the reverter clause only applies to a cessation of the use authorized.

¶21 In Jordan v. Goldman, supra, the territorial court had under consideration the question of the use of certain lands in the "Cherokee Outlet" for purposes other than that specified in the grant. It was there held:

"The lands having been ceded and granted as an outlet, they cannot be lawfully used for any other purpose, either by the Cherokee Nation or persons claiming by

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