Williamson v. Jones

• Decision Date: 11 June 1897
• Parties: WILLIAMSON et al. v. JONES et al.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

27 S.E. 411

43 W.Va. 562

WILLIAMSON et al. v. JONES et al.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

June 11, 1897

Submitted February 9, 1897

Syllabus by the Court.

1. Petroleum oil in place is part of the land. Its wrongful extraction by one lawfully in possession is waste, and by a stranger is trespass; in both cases irreparable injury, which may be enjoined.

2. It is waste in a tenant for life to take petroleum oil from the land, for which he is liable to the reversioner or remainder-man in fee.

3. A tenant for life may work open salt or oil wells or mines even to exhaustion, without account, but cannot open new ones.

4. It is waste in a tenant in common to take petroleum oil from the land, for which he is liable to his co-tenants to the extent of their right in the land.

5. Things part of the land, wrongfully severed by a tenant for life, become personalty, but belong to the owner of the next vested estate of inheritance in reversion or remainder, not the life tenant.

6. Where there is a life tenant, and timber or other thing part of the realty going to loss, and imperative need calls for it, equity may cause it to be cut or otherwise secured for the remainder-man or reversioner. Equity has power to do so if it do no harm to the life tenant, or he be compensated.

7. Principles of estoppel in pais discussed.

8. If one claiming sole right to another's land spends money in improving or operating upon it, though ignorant of that other's right, the mere silence of that other will not estop him from asserting his title. He need not seek the other to tell him of his right, or speak at all, unless placed in such a situation as calls upon him to declare his right.

9. A purchaser at a judicial sale is conclusively held as having notice of all facts touching the rights of others in the property sold, disclosed by the record of the case.

10. Owners of vested estates in reversion and remainder, whether by legal or equitable title, are indispensable parties to a chancery suit to sell the fee; and the presence as parties of a tenant for life, or of the trustee holding for them, does not make them parties by representation, and a sale under the decree will not affect or pass their right in the land.

11. A married woman cannot, by even fraudulent conduct, be barred under the principle of estoppel in pais from asserting her title to land, though separate estate; but as to her personal estate it is different. Now that she is enabled to contract as if single, she will be bound by estoppel in pais touching her contracts as if single.

12. An infant of years of discretion, by intentional fraudulent conduct, will be barred, under the doctrine of estoppel in pais, from asserting her title to either real or personal property against one misled thereby.

13. A tenant for life, or a tenant in common in sole possession claiming exclusive ownership, taking petroleum oil, and converting it to his exclusive use, is liable to account on the basis of rents and profits, not for annual rental.

14. A remainder-man or reversioner has jurisdiction in equity against a tenant for life to enjoin waste, and to have compensation for the damages, the same as if he sued at law to avoid multiplicity of suits. The same is the case between tenants in common where one is guilty of waste.

15. A tenant for life, who, by waste, has severed from the realty things that are part of it, as petroleum oil, has no right to have their proce eds invested so he may have interest therein during the life estate, but their proceeds go at once to the owner of the next vested estate of inheritance.

16. One making permanent improvements on land as if his own, at a time when there was reason to believe his title good, is to be allowed their value, so far as they enhance the value of the land; but if, when making them, he has notice, actual or constructive, of the superior right of another, he cannot be allowed them.

17. One having notice of facts rendering his title inferior to another's who, by mistake of law, regards his title good cannot claim for permanent improvements.

18. Under the circumstances, a party taking petroleum oil unlawfully is allowed all costs of production, including costs of boring productive wells, as a set-off against rents and profits.

Appeal from circuit court, Tyler county.

Bill by Eliza Williamson and others against J. T. Jones and others. Decree for complainants, and defendant Jones appeals. Reversed.

Caldwell & Caldwell, for appellant.

W. P. Hubbard, Thos. I. Steatey, H. P. Camden, and Geo. E. Boyd, for appellees.

BRANNON J.

I refer to the report of a former decision in this case for a full statement of the facts. 39 W.Va. 231, 19 S.E. 436. Under the judicial sale, Jones thought and claimed that he purchased the entirety of the two tracts,--one of 165 acres, and the other 45 poles; but, as seven undivided tenths vested by the will of David Hickman in Engle, as trustee, to hold for the use of his daughter Eliza Williamson for her life, with remainder to her sisters, and as the remainder-men were not parties to the suit, the decree of sale, and sale under it, were void and ineffectual to pass anything but the life estate in those seven-tenths; and so the remainder in them did not pass under the sale, but remained in the sisters of Eliza Williamson. Jones, however, took exclusive possession, claiming the whole. He bored 23 wells in the pursuit and production of petroleum oil. The plaintiffs sued him in equity to enjoin his further production of oil, and for an account of what he had produced. After the decision upon a former appeal an account was taken, and the circuit court held that Jones pay the owners of the seven-tenths of the land for one-eighth of seven-tenths of the oil produced, and seven-tenths of the value of the timber taken from the land, thus charging Jones only for one-eighth of the oil, that being the usual rent, commonly called "royalty," in that section stipulated and paid to the landowner under oil leases. Jones appeals, and he assigns error in charging him with anything at all, and for other causes; and the plaintiffs cross assign error in charging Jones only with one-eighth, and for other causes.

We start with the fact that Jones was owner of three undivided tenths in fee in possession, and owner of a life estate for the life of Mrs. Williamson in the remaining seven-tenths, and the plaintiffs owners of the remainder in fee in those seven-tenths; after the end of the life estate, a vested remainder; and, in this condition of right to the land, Jones bored 23 wells upon the land, and produced from May, 1892, to December 21, 1895, 622, 281 barrels of petroleum oil therefrom, valued at $500,298. Did he have right to bore for this oil? He claims that he had, and that every barrel of it is his, without liability to account to the plaintiffs; while the plaintiffs claim that he had no right to bore and produce this oil, but, having done so, he must account to them for full seven-tenths. Did Jones, as tenant for life, have right to extract this oil? He had not. Petroleum oil, in its place in the land, is a part of the land itself, just as are coal, timber, and iron. Bettman v. Harness, 42 W.Va. 433, 26 S.E. 271; Williamson v. Jones, 39 W.Va. 231, 19 S.E. 436. A tenant for life cannot do anything entailing permanent injury to the estate of the remainder-man or reversioner. He cannot, therefore, dig for gravel, lime, clay, stone, or the like; cannot open new mines for minerals. 1 Lomax, Dig. 54. If he take clay to make brick, not for repair of buildings, but for sale, it is waste. University v. Tucker, 31 W.Va. 622, 8 S.E. 410. It is the duty of the life tenant to protect the land from waste or injury even from others, and he must abstain from so doing himself. 1 Washb. Real Prop. p. 116, § 24; 1 Lomax, Dig. 57. Therefore, when Jones himself committed waste by boring for oil, he was a wrongdoer, so far as concerns his life estate. The remainder-men could sue him in an action of waste, as at common law under the English statute of Marlbridge, or in action of trespass on the case under chapter 92 of the Code, and recover the full value of their seven-tenths.

It is sought to show that Jones, as life tenant, had right to all the oil, by the case of Koen v. Bartlett, 41 W.Va 559, 23 S.E. 664, but that case will not sustain this claim. It asserts only that a tenant for life may use the land and its profits, including mines of oil or gas open when his life estate begins, or lawfully opened and worked during its existence. There the owner in fee had made a lease for oil, with a royalty as rent, and then conveyed the fee, reserving a life estate, and it was held that he, as life tenant, was entitled, as against the remainder-man, to the royalty; but there the owner had authorized the boring for oil, and the conveyance was subject, in terms, to the lease, and, though the boring had not produced wells open at the commencement of the life estate, they were bored, under authority, during its continuance. We held that a mine bored in the period of the life estate under prior authority, was to be deemed as if an open mine at the commencement of the life estate. It is established that an open mine may be worked to even exhaustion by the life tenant. Crouch v. Puryear, 1 Rand. (Va.) 258; 1 Lomax, Dig. 54. The offense of waste consists in the first penetration and opening of the soil, and it is not waste to dig in mines or pits already open, which have become part of the annual profit of the land. Tayl. Landl. & Ten. § 249a. When Jones penetrated the soil, he did so without warrant from his life tenancy, and without warrant from the creator of the life estate. There was no open well, no antecedent authority to bore one. Koen...