175 Pa. Super. 431 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1954
Opinion by
Appellant partners brought an action to quiet title in the Court of Common Pleas of McKean County. The complaint averred that plaintiffs were seized of and in possession of a tract of 80 acres of land situate in Warrant 4910, Corydon Township, McKean County, and describing it; that the premises were conveyed
Plaintiffs’ claim is based on the conveyance of the land to them from South Penn Oil Company, which corporation was named grantee in a deed from Devonian Oil Company, a Pennsylvania corporation, under date of November 18, 1897 and recorded December 31, 1897. Devonian, the Pennsylvania corporation, by deed dated December 28, 1920 and recorded November 21, 1922, conveyed to Devonian Oil Corporation, a Delaware corporation, “all lands of the above named grant- or in said McKean County”. Devonian, the Delaware corporation, conveyed the 80 acres in question to defendant by quitclaim deed dated March 10, 1950 and recorded March 24, 1950.
Our decision depends upon our construction of the 1897 deed from Devonian, the Pennsylvania corpora
Item 4 of the 1897 deed contains a recital of a consideration of $450,000 and of chain of title, and states that the conveyance is made subject to reservation of gas and oil royalties to a named predecessor in title, her heirs and assigns. It reserves also all the timber sold to a named company by the grantor. Then follows the clause “Excepting and Reserving, however, out of the above grant, in said tract of land, [describing it] Containing 80 acres in Warrant 4910. Together with two oil wells complete and three wells . . .” Item' 5 conveys “All the undivided 1/32 royalty interest in the 323 acres . . . being the same royalty interest . . . conveyed to Devonian Oil Company” [with dates of deeds and recording].
Interpretation of Item 6 is determinative of this appeal. It conveys “All of the first parties [sic] interest in and to the following described tract of land situated in Corydon Township, McKean County, Penna., in Warrant 4910, bounded and described as follows, to-wit: [Description] Containing 80 acres in Warrant 4910; said interest being one-half of all the working interest in said tract of land, subject to a 3/16 royalty, 1/8 reserved to Delia Taylor, her heirs and assigns, and 1/16 to C. H. Poster by Agreement dated October 8, 1897.” The next paragraph conveys
The narrow issue is whether by Item 6 conveying “all of [the grantor’s] interest in and to” the 80 acres in Warrant 4910 the grantee acquired literally all such interest, or whether the clause “said interest being one-half of all the working interest in said tract of land” operates to derogate from the entire interest to the degree stated. (The “working interest” referred to concededly is the right, ordinarily implied in oil and gas leases, in the lessee to enter upon the leased property and produce and remove oil or gas therefrom. )
Appellants contend for a construction consonant with what, in some other jurisdictions, is considered an inflexible rule of property in the construction of deeds, viz., that the interest conveyed by a granting clause is not to be cut down by what follows in the description. They cite Reddoch v. Williams, 129 Miss. 706, 92 S. 831, which, quoting from the early case of Barksdale v. Barksdale, 92 Miss. 166, 175, 45 S. 615, sets forth the rule as follows: “. . . a good general grant will never be limited by a subsequent particular description unless it is manifest that this particular description was meant to operate as a limitation; and this intention, that it shall so operate as a limitation, must be definitely expressed in the terms used in the particular description.”
While there are a few early Pennsylvania cases in our reports from which we might extract dicta on the overall subject, they are dissimilar in their factual setup, and diligent research has disclosed no decision in this Commonwealth deciding squarely the problem at hand. We rely, therefore, on general principles of construction.
We think that in Item 6 the intent, as gleaned from the words used, was clearly to limit the interest conveyed to one-half of the working interest of the grantor. A construction in accordance with appellants’ argument would require an utter disregard and rejection of the reservation of the 80 acres in Item 4, rendering it meaningless.
In arriving at this conclusion we have not overlooked appellants’ restatement of the principle that where the terms of a deed are doubtful the court will adopt that construction which is most strongly in favor of the grantee and against the grantor. Ransberry v. Brodhead’s Forest and Stream Assn., 315 Pa. 513, 515, 174 A. 97. Clearly, however, application of this rule is limited to situations where the intent of the parties is ambiguous so that it cannot be ascertained from the four corners of the instrument. We find the lan
Order dismissing the complaint affirmed.