United Production Corporation v. Hughes

• Decision Date: 30 April 1941
• Docket Number: No. 1841-7556.,1841-7556.
• Citation: 152 S.W.2d 327
• Parties: UNITED PRODUCTION CORPORATION et al. v. HUGHES.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

152 S.W.2d 327

UNITED PRODUCTION CORPORATION et al. v. HUGHES.

No. 1841-7556.

Commission of Appeals of Texas, Section B.

April 30, 1941.

Motion for Rehearing Overruled June 11, 1941.

Error from Court of Civil Appeals of Third Supreme Judicial District.

Action by Everett Hughes against the United Production Corporation and others to obtain a mineral lease on vacant land. Judgment in favor of defendants was reversed by the Court of Civil Appeals, and defendants bring error.

Judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals reversed and judgment of the District Court affirmed.

Carney & Carney, of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error Echols.

Watkins & Mays, of Dallas, for plaintiff in error American Liberty Oil Co.

Felts, Wheeler & Wheeler, of Austin, for plaintiff in error Farr.

Lasseter, Simpson, Spruiell & Lowry, of Tyler, for plaintiff in error Salt Mount Oil Co.

Abney & Abney, of Marshall, for plaintiff in error Daverne Oil Corporation.

Vinson, Elkins, Weems & Francis and Thos. Fletcher, all of Houston, for plaintiff in error United Production Co.

W. E. Fitzgerald and Ralph P. Dickson, both of Wichita Falls, for defendant in error.

SLATTON, Commissioner.

Hughes brought this action against the Land Commissioner and others in the district court of Travis County, for the purpose of procuring a mineral lease upon alleged vacant land situated in Cass County, Texas.

The Attorney General, on behalf of the Land Commissioner, filed a plea to the jurisdiction under the provisions of Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes, Article 1735, and other parties filed similar pleas and pleas of privilege, and other parties filed formal answers.

Hughes filed a motion to dismiss as to the Commissioner and asked permission to amend as to all other parties. No action was taken upon the motion by the trial court. The judgment from which Hughes has appealed provides as follows:

"On this 15th day of October, 1937, came on to be heard said cause, etc. * * * whereupon came relator and announced to the Court that the plea to the jurisdiction filed by the Attorney General of the State of Texas on behalf of the respondent Land Commissioner was good and should be sustained, but that in view of such plea * * * relator desired to dismiss as to Commissioner * * * and further stated to the Court that he desired leave of the Court to file an amended pleading; and, further, in open court stated that some of the respondents, (naming them) had filed plea of privilege and pleas to the venue to Cass County, Texas, which pleas to the venue relator confessed in open court to be good.

"Whereupon, came on to be heard the pleas to jurisdiction filed by respondents in said cause, and the court having heard such pleas and being of the opinion that such pleas to the jurisdiction are good and should be sustained, and that the sustaining of such pleas require dismissal of the cause;

"It is accordingly ordered, etc. (here dismisses Land Commissioner).

"It is further ordered that the several pleas to the jurisdiction filed by respondents be, and the same are, hereby in all things sustained, and this cause is herewith dismissed.

"It is further ordered that said cause having been dismissed, the application of the Relator for leave to amend be, and the same is, hereby denied."

The Honorable Court of Civil Appeals at Austin reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the cause with instructions to change the venue to Cass County, Hughes v. McDonald, 122 S.W. 2d 366. This court granted writ of error.

Plaintiffs in error contend that the Honorable Court of Civil Appeals erred in holding that the factual allegations of defendant in error's petition set forth the essential elements of a cause of action against plaintiffs in error alone and independently of the asserted rights against the Land Commissioner, so that the order of dismissal by the trial court and denying amendment was held to be improper.

That the primary purpose of the suit was to compel the Land Commissioner to execute a mineral lease upon the land in suit cannot well be questioned. Omitting the factual averments made against the Land Commissioner, the defendant in error alleged the following:

"Relator would further represent and show unto the Court that the respondents, save and except the Commissioner of the General Land Office, have gone upon the land and premises hereinabove described, without legal authority and have taken possession of the same and are appropriating said land to their own use and benefit; that they have leased and drilled for oil and gas minerals and are appropriating the rents and revenues from said property to their own use and benefit and have taken and are now taking from said land and premises the minerals thereon and thereunder, and have produced and sold and appropriated to their own use and benefit the oil and gas in great quantities from said premises to the great damage of your Relator and the Public Free School Fund of the State of Texas, and they are now taking from said land and premises said oil, oil products and minerals and appropriating the same to their own use and benefit without any right so to do, and are therefore trespassing, and will continue to trespass upon said land, premises to the damage of your Relator and the State of Texas, and its school fund in the sum of Fifty Thousand ($50,000.00) Dollars. In this connection, Relator would ask that said respondents be required to file in this court, a true and correct statement and accounting of the oil and mineral products that they have taken from said land and be required to account to this Relator and the Public Free School Fund of this State for the same.

"Wherefore, your Relator prays that each of the said respondents be cited to appear and answer this petition, and that upon a hearing of this cause, he have judgment compelling and requiring the Commissioner of the General Land Office to grant him a mineral lease on the acreage described herein in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and in all respects, to approve said application and execute the character of lease required under the Act aforesaid, to your Relator; that the other respondents herein be cited to show why said Writ of Mandamus herein prayed for should not be issued, and that said respondents be required and compelled to file in this court an accounting of the oil and gas products that they have taken from the land and premises herein described; and that your Relator recover all costs in this behalf expended."

It is apparent that the factual allegations quoted do not present a cause of action in favor of Hughes against the parties other than the Land Commissioner. It appears from the specific prayer quoted above that the main relief sought is against the Land Commissioner and as against all other parties other than the Land Commissioner an accounting is sought, but without any prayer for a recovery of any sum of money or property and that relief is secondary and dependent upon the issuance of the mandamus. The predominant purpose of the suit being to compel the Land Commissioner to execute a mineral lease upon the land, the accounting feature of the action was a mere incident to the main purpose of the suit and dependent upon the issuance of the mandamus. Therefore, when Hughes conceded the jurisdictional plea asserted by the Land Commissioner on the ground that the Supreme Court has exclusive jurisdiction in such a case, and asked the trial court to dismiss the proceedings as to the Land Commissioner, there was no cause or controversy pending which Hughes had the right to amend. In other words, there was nothing to amend.

In the case of Pecos & N. T. Ry. Co. v. Rayzor, 106 Tex. 544, 172 S.W. 1103, 1104, Mr. Justice Phillips, speaking for the Supreme Court, said: "Nothing is better settled than that, in a suit which the court is inherently without the power to hear and determine, any judgment rendered and all proceedings had in its relation are mere nullities. Under this fundamental rule, with the court destitute of all authority to give to the suit any cognizance, it is difficult to conceive that the filing of the petition could have any legal effect. To constitute the proceeding `a suit' or `action,' in any legal sense, it is essential that it rest in a court, with the power to hear it. Without such a forum, it is not `a suit,' since it lacks that which is as necessary to make it a suit as the petition itself."

Applying the rule stated to the pleadings filed by Hughes, it cannot be said that any injury was sustained by him when the trial court refused to allow an amendment to be filed. This is true for the reason that it affirmatively appears from the pleadings of Hughes that the cause of action attempted to be brought is not within the jurisdiction of the district court, but within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Article 1735, Vernon's Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas. The rule is recognized that one cause of action may, by amendment, be substituted for another. Ballard v. Carmichael, 83 Tex. 355, 18 S.W. 734. But this rule presupposes jurisdiction in the court in which the causes of action have been filed and cannot be applied in an action such as this because the district court does not have jurisdiction to entertain it.

It is true that Hughes has complied with all necessary steps to obtain a lease upon school land, according to his averments, provided the land is vacant and belongs to the public free school fund of the State of Texas. It is alleged that the land is vacant. It is also alleged that the Land Commissioner denied Hughes' application to lease for the reason, according to "information and belief" entertained by Hughes, that plaintiffs in error made some sort of claims to the land. Thus the allegations stated simply mean, when we apply the presumption that a public official has rightly performed his duty (Anderson v. Polk, 117 Tex. 73, 297 S.W. 219), that the land is vacant...