Winslow v. Duval County Ranch Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. 7517,7517
• Citation: 519 S.W.2d 217
• Parties: Harry WINSLOW et al., Appellants, v. DUVAL COUNTY RANCH COMPANY, INC., Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 217

519 S.W.2d 217

Harry WINSLOW et al., Appellants, v. DUVAL COUNTY RANCH COMPANY, INC., Appellee.

No. 7517.

Court of Civil Appeals of Texas Beaumont.

Jan. 23, 1975.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 20, 1975.

Wood, Burney, Nesbitt & Ryan, Corpus Christi, Cox, Smith, Smith, Hale & Guenther, Morrison, Dittmar, Dahlgren & Kaine, San Antonio, Grose, Nixon & Erck, Alice, for appellants.

Stiernberg, Skaggs & Koppel, Harlingen, for appellee.

KEITH, Justice.

Several defendants have appealed from an order granting a temporary injunction which restrained each defendant from:

'. . . pumping, flowing or producing any petroleum or oil from leases located on the following sections of land in Duval County, Texas from which the aforesaid Defendants have been producing petroleum and oil, to-wit: (here follows the name of each individual defendant and the particular section applicable to his operations).' ¹

Before these defendants, our appellants, were made parties to the suit, plaintiff below had obtained a temporary injunction against two other defendants who took an appeal to the Fourth Court of Civil Appeals at San Antonio. The basic pleadings involved in this case are identical to those summarized in the prior appeal now reported as Speedman Oil Co. v. Duval County Ranch Co., Inc., 504 S.W.2d 923, 925--926 (Tex.Civ.App.--San Antonio 1974, writ ref'd n.r.e.), to which we refer. In our subsequent discussion we will refer to this as the 'Speedman Case.' ²

We will refer to Duval County Ranch Co., Inc., simply as plaintiff . The defendants will be grouped as their interests appear to be joint, namely: Winslow-Duval; Chiles-Arnold; Beissner; and Lynd-Sparks. Our record of a trial extending over a period of several months is extremely lengthy and, in our effort to condense the statement, many facets thereof may escape specific mention. In addition, several of the defendants urge similar points of erro, in which event, one disposition will serve for all such overlapping contentions.

Background

Plaintiff was created in 1919 with approximately 144,000 acres of land situated mostly in Duval County. During the nineteen twenties, mineral rights were leased by 'base leases.' Defendants own, by unchallenged mesne conveyances, small tracts carved out of the base leases from the assignees of the original lessees.

Much of the plaintiff's land had been producing oil since the early nineteen thirties and most of the parties agree that the land had been overproduced by the nineteen forties when secondary operations began in an effort to recover the remaining oil in place.

Each defendant (except Lynd-Sparks and Chiles) was engaged in the production of oil from his own particular section of plaintiff's land by virtue of an assignment from the owner of one of the base mineral leases. In each instance, the particular defendant was a relative latecomer to the area, having acquired his assignment after oil had been produced therefrom for many years. It appears quite clear from the record that much of the equipment upon the respective leases was old and had likely reached the end of its productive life . Such equipment was, however, capable of producing oil and was actually being so used at the time of the commencement of the litigation.

There was no joint or concert of action between any of the several defendants; instead, each was operating completely independent of the other upon his own particular area of the vast ranch of the plaintiff, in some instances from five to twenty miles away from each other.

Although plaintiff's lands originally encompassed approximately 144,000 acres, by the terms of a comprehensive agreement executed in 1965, plaintiff and Humble Oil & Refining Co. (now Exxon Corp.) partitioned of lands and minerals. It is sufficient to state at this point that plaintiff received the south 100,000 acres as its portion of the whole ranch with Humble receiving the north 44,000 acres. Each of the partitioning owners received numerous surveys which are described in our record as being 'minerally classified.' See Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 5368 (1962). We are not here concerned with the intricate details of the transaction between Humble and plaintiff.

After plaintiff's sole stockholder (Clinton Manges) obtained complete stock ownership of the plaintiff corporation, the present suit was instituted. Plaintiff's pleadings, very general in nature, were met with numerous special exceptions urged by the several defendants but all were overruled. We note, in passing, that no specific act or omission was charged against any particular defendant--the allegations being of a 'shotgun' nature applicable to all alike.

After an extensive hearing over a period of several months, the trial court granted the temporary injunction sought by plaintiff, denied all relief sought by defendants, and refused to fix the amount of a supersedeas bond. Each defendant has filed his separate appeal and brief.

The appeal from the order granting the temporary injunction, dated January 18, 1973, has been delayed because of the inability of the court reporter to prepare and file the statement of facts. It was not until June 14, 1974 that the record was completed. ³ Within six months thereafter, the parties had briefed and argued the case and it was ready for determination by December 12, 1974.

Opinion

'Plaintiff's suit seeks cancellation of (the) oil and gas lease(s) which (have) been assigned to defendants by the original lessee(s), and recovery of $2,000,000 actual damages and a like amount as exemplary damages because of alleged permanent injury to the surface of plaintiff's land as a result of defendants' operations.' ⁴

The dominant purpose of plaintiff's suit was to secure a forfeiture of the oil and gas leases held by the defendants because of the alleged pollution of its lands, and to recover the damages caused to such lands. ⁵ The injunction which was granted was, consequently, an ancillary injunction. 6 Texas Practice (2d ed. 1973) § 156, at 195; Houston Oil Co. of Texas v. Village Mills Co., 109 Tex. 169, 202 S.W. 725, 226 S.W. 1075 (1918); City of Dallas v. Wright, 120 Tex. 190, 36 S.W.2d 973 (1931); City of Beaumont v. West, 484 S.W.2d 789 (Tex.Civ.App.--Beaumont 1972, writ ref'd n.r.e.).

In our review of the order granting the temporary injunction we are governed by a series of rules which have been stated, restated, affirmed, and reaffirmed by our Supreme Court upon several occasions . We do not find it necessary to again state the rules. See, e.g., Transport Co. of Texas v. Robertson Transports, 152 Tex. 551, 261 S.W.2d 549, 552 (1953); Camp v. Shannon, 162 Tex. 515, 348 S.W.2d 517, 519 (1961); Sun Oil Company v. Whitaker, 424 S.W.2d 216, 218 (Tex.1968); Millwrights Loc. Union No. 2484 v. Rust Engineering Co., 433 S.W.2d 683, 686 (Tex.1968). We are of the view that it would be to pile Pelion upon Ossa for us to attempt further elucidation of these rules.

In its pleading for injunctive relief, plaintiff sought only a decree which unconditionally prohibited defendants from producing oil from the land covered by their valid leases (fn. 5, supra); plaintiff did not seek to enjoin pollution. It is clearly established in this state that, before a court of equity may grant injunctive relief, the applicant must specify the precise relief sought and the court is without jurisdiction to grant relief beyond or in addition to that particularly specified. Fletcher v. King, 75 S.W.2d 980, 982 (Tex.Civ.App.--Amarillo 1934, writ ref'd); Lone Star Gas Co. v. Childress, 187 S.W.2d 936, 939 (Tex.Civ.App.--Waco 1945, no writ); Davies v. Unauthorized Pr. Com. of St. Bar of Texas, 431 S .W.2d 590, 594 (Tex.Civ.App.--Tyler 1968, writ ref'd n.r.e.).

We must bear another equally important rule in mind when we review the particular order under consideration. It was stated in Villalobos v. Holguin, 146 Tex. 474, 208 S.W.2d 871, 875 (1948), in this language: '(T)he decree must not be so broad as to enjoin a defendant from activities which are lawful and a proper exercise of his rights. 43 C.J.S., Injunctions, § 211.' See also, Scoggins v. Cameron County Water Imp. Dist. No. 15, 264 S.W.2d 169, 173 (Tex.Civ .App.--Austin 1954, writ ref'd).

Another rule which we must honor is that stated in Sun Oil Company v. Whitaker, supra: '(I)n no event should the writ issue for the protection of an applicant who does not show a probable right on final trial to a permanent injunction.' (424 S.W.2d at 218) See also, Millwrights Loc. Union No. 2484 v. Rust Engineering Co., supra .

We now face defendants' contention that the trial court abused its discretion in enjoining all Production and not just Pollution. Plaintiff, understandably, relies heavily upon the Speedman Case, supra. In their appeal, the Speedman defendants challenged the temporary injunction on the ground that 'the interlocutory injunction alters, rather than preserves, the status quo.' In stating the contention of the Speedman appellants, Justice Cardena used these words:

'In presenting this ground for dissolution of the injunction, defendants maintain that the status quo to be preserved consists of the method in which they were operating prior to the institution of plaintiff's suit.' (504 S.W.2d at 928)

In our case, defendants do not contend that they have a vested right to continue polluting the surface of plaintiff's lands. As one group of defendants (Chiles-Arnold) say:

'Assuming, arguendo, that Appellants were 'polluting' the surface of the lands, the Appellants Do not here contend that they have the right to commit wrongful pollution. But they do contend that they have the vested legal right to continue to produce oil under their leases.' (emphasis in text)

We now turn to a consideration of the correlative rights of the surface owner vis a vis those of the owners of the mineral estate. These rights were set out with admirable simplicity by Justice Steakley in Getty Oil Company v. Jones, 470 S.W.2d...