(Download) "Hunt v. Pick" by United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Hunt v. Pick
- Author : United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit
- Release Date : January 16, 1957
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 51 KB
Description
R. Brannan and Bessie Brannan instituted this action against Sohio Oil Company to establish and enforce an equitable trust to an overriding royalty interest in an oil and gas leasehold. The action was filed in the state court and was seasonably removed to the United State Court on the ground of diversity of citizenship with the requisite amount in controversy. Stripped of legal inferences and conclusions, the petition alleged these facts. Under date of October 25, 1949, Ralph Gilliam and Ella May Gilliam gave to plaintiffs two oil and gas leases, one covering a tract of land in Love County, Oklahoma, containing ten acres, and the other covering a tract in such county containing forty acres. The leases were for a primary term of five years, beginning October 25, 1949, and expiring October 25, 1954. On July 11, 1950, plaintiffs assigned the leases to the defendant. Each assignment contained a provision reserving to the assignors an overriding royalty of one-sixteenth of seven-eighths of all oil, gas, casing-head gas, distillate, and other hydrocarbons produced and saved from the land. On or about August 25, 1954, defendant obtained from R. E. Gilliam and Ella May Gilliam an oil and gas lease covering all of such land. The lease was dated August 25, 1954, and provided that it was subject to a lease or leases then on such land and should not go into effect until such then existing lease or leases terminated. Nothing was done to develop the premises for oil and gas prior to the expiration of the original leases; but subsequent thereto and after the new lease became effective, the premises were developed and production was obtained. The prayer in the complaint was for judgment determining that plaintiffs were the owners of an undivided one-sixteenth of seven-eighths overriding royalty interest in and to the oil, gas, and other minerals produced from such land; quieting the title of plaintiffs to such royalty interest; and requiring defendant to account. The court dismissed the action upon the ground that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Plaintiffs appealed; and for convenience, continued reference will be made to the parties as plaintiffs and defendant, respectively.