56 Ind. App. 337 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1914
In 1889 Noble Warrum was the owner of two tracts of land in Hancock County, containing 15 acres and 353 acres respectively. On August 7, of said year, Warrum executed to appellant Fairbanks a gas and oil lease, covering the first tract, and on July 10 of the same year, he executed to said appellant a like lease covering the second tract. On October 28, 1893, Warrum, by deed of
“Said Fairbanks agrees that he or his assigns will furnish free of charge during the continuance of this contract natural gas for lighting and heating one residence on said place, for the cooking of food for the owner’s stock, to be delivered at the nearest practicable point on his main in use or at his wells, as long as gas is there obtained in paying quantities for piping, according to> the judgment of said Fairbanks or assigns, and to pay at the rate of one hundred dollars per year on each well completed. It is further agreed that until said Fairbanks or assigns shall complete a well on the described premises, he or his assigns will pay to the first party yearly in advance on demand, at the Citizens Bank in the city of Greenfield, Indiana, a rental of fifty cents per acre on said premises, and a failure to pay said rental shall render this contract null and void.”
It is provided that the lessor shall have one-eighth of the oil produced at the well. It is further provided:
“This contract to be in force for the term of twenty years, and the said Fairbanks or assigns shall have the right at the expiration of said time at his option to continue the same for three additional terms on the same conditions, said option to be exercised by said Fairbanks or assigns at the end of each term.”
The second paragraph alleges in substance that Fairbanks having entered into possession of said 353-acre tract under said lease, which lease was duly recorded August 17, 1889, drilled and completed a gas well thereon on the......day of ........... 1890, which well produced large quantities of gas, and that he used and transported gas from said well in paying quantities until the......day of.........., 1899, and that he paid to said Noble Warrum the specified well rental on said well up to the said time of the execution of said deed to appellees on October 28, 1893; that on the ...... day of.........., Fairbanks assigned said lease and all his rights, title and interest under it to his coappellant; that said lease expired by limitation on July 10, 1909, being at the end of said twenty-year term. It is not alleged that said well was on that part of said tract so conveyed to' appellees. Other facts are alleged from which it appears that appellees, as such life tenants, claim that they are entitled to recover such a proportionate part of said well rentals accruing after the execution of said deed as said 58-aere tract bears to said 353-acre tract. It is alleged that com
Appellants jointly answered in twelve paragraphs. Appellees’ demurrer was sustained to each paragraph of answer, except the first which was a general denial, and the ninth and tenth, which pleaded payment. Appellees replied in general denial to said ninth and tenth paragraphs of answer. Trial by jury, resulting in verdict and judgment in favor of appellees for $340. The errors assigned and not waived relate to the sustaining of the demurrers to said paragraphs of answer, and to the overruling of the motion for a new trial. Included in the motion for a new trial, as grounds thereof, are certain assignments relating to the giving and refusing of instructions, and to the exclusion of certain offered evidence. It is assigned also that the amount of recovery is erroneous, being too large, and that the verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence, and that it is contrary to law. Such being the nature of the motion for a new trial, it becomes necessary for us to consider certain preliminary questions urged upon our attention, and first as to whether the evidence is in the record.
As the evidence is not in the record, the judgment cannot he reversed on account of said instructions given, if they would have been correct under any supposable state of facts within the issues. Baltimore, etc., R. Co. v. Rowan (1885), 104 Ind. 88, 3 N. E. 627. Moreover, by reason of the nature of the exception to instructions given, as above outlined, the same conclusion follows, if any one of said instructions is presumably correct under the principle last above announced. It is not seriously contended that all said instructions so given and excepted to are erroneous. In fact, one of said instructions, being the one to which the court assigned the No. 11 is not even included among those of which complaint is made, as set out in appellants’ brief. The presumption will therefore be indulged that said instruction is conceded to be correct, and there is, therefore, no available error in instructions given. Hatfield v. Chenowith (1900), 24 Ind. App. 343, 349, 56 N. E. 51. As to said instructions refused, we have already developed the principle that if any one of them was correctly refused, appellants’ exception in gross presents no question. Where, as here, however, the evidence is not in the record, it is our duty to presume in favor of the ruling of the trial court and to that end to assume that all said instructions were correctly refused, because they were not applicable to the case made by the evidence. Mace v. Clark (1908), 42 Ind. App. 506, 85 N. E. 1049; South Chicago City R. Co. v. Zerler (1903), 31 Ind. App. 488, 65 N. E. 599; DeHart v. Board, etc. (1896), 143 Ind. 363, 41 N. E. 825.
We are aware that Wettengel v. Gormley (1898), 184 Pa. St. 354, 39 Atl. 57, and Wettengel v. Gormley (1894), 160 Pa. St. 559, 28 Atl. 934, 40 Am. St. 733, are out of harmony with the conclusion at which we have arrived, but we are not content to follow that case. The supreme court of Ohio, in Northwestern, etc., Gas Co. v. Ullery, supra, says in criticism of the Pennsylvania case, the following: “We have several times had occasion to carefully examine and consider that case and it has always failed to receive the approval of our judgment.” The syllabus to the Ohio case, as prepared by the court, is a fair statement of the decision, and is as follows: “Where an oil and gas lease is made by one party to another covering two or more separate tracts of land, and is made to extend to the heirs and assigns of the parties, and different persons become the owners of such different tracts, each owner is entitled to the oil and gas produced on his tract, and to the royalty and rental arising from such tract.” See, also, Rymer v. South Penn Oil Co. (1904), 54 W. Va. 530, 46 S. E. 559.
It is not necessary for us in this ease to determine the rights of the life tenants under said lease. However, we have no doubt that had there been in operation on the 58-acre tract, at the time of the execution of the deed, a producing gas well, or had such a well been thereafter drilled, they would have been entitled to collect and receive the well rentals or royalties therefrom thereafter accruing. Richmond Nat. Gas Co. v. Davenport (1905), 37 Ind. App. 25, 76 N. E. 525; Andrews v. Andrews (1903), 31 Ind. App. 189, 194, 67 N. E. 461; Koen v. Bartlett (1895), 41 W. Va. 559, 23 S. E. 664, 31 L. R. A. 128, 56 Am. St. 884; Deffenbaugh v. Hess (1909), 225 Pa. St. 638, 74 Atl. 608, 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1099; Ohio Oil Co. v. Daughetee (1909), 240 Ill. 361, 88 N. E. 818, 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1108. By the terms of the 15-acre lease, Fairbanks and assigns agreed to pay acreage rental at the rate of 50 cents per acre annually, until a well should be completed on said tract. No well was completed thereon, and as a consequence Fairbanks and assigns were obligated by the terms of such lease to pay such rental until the expiration of the lease. Appellees or such life tenants were entitled to collect and receive such acreage
It is therefore ordered that if within twenty days appellees shall file in this court a remittitur in the sum of $221.13 to be effective as of the date of the judgment below,
Since the decision of this case by this court, and within the time fixed in the opinion handed down April 24, 1914, conditionally affirming the judgment of the lower court, it has been made to appear to the satisfaction of this court that the condition on which said judgment was to be affirmed, to wit: That appellees should file in this court a remittitur in the sum of $224.13, to be effective as of the date of the judgment below, has been fully complied with. It is therefore, ordered that the mandate heretofore made and entered by this court in said cause be, and it is hereby modified in that the judgment of the court below in the sum of $115.87 is now unconditionally affirmed, with the costs against appellants.
Note. — Reported in 104 N. E. 983. As to rights of owner of surface land as against owner of underlying minerals, see 135 Am. St. 131. As to the nature of property in mineral, oil or gas, see 25 L. R. A. 222. As to the rights of a life tenant as to oil and gas, see 36 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1108. For a discussion of petroleum and natural gas as minerals, see 20 Ann. Cas. 937; Ann Cas. 1913 B 1214. See, also, under (1, 2) 2 Cyc. 1041; (3) 3 Cyc. 165; (4) 38 Cyc. 1796, 1803; (5) 3 Cyc. 169; (6) 3 Cyc. 388; (7) 3 Cyc. 303; (8) 31 Cyc. 138; (10) 38 Cyc. 1888; (11) 27 Cyc. 716; (12) 27 Cyc. 628; (13, 14) 27 Cyc. 628; (15) 2 Cyc. 677; (16, 17) 27 Cyc. 743; (18) 3 Cyc. 422.