Crowell & Conner v. Howard
Crowell & Conner v. Howard
Opinion of the Court
Appellants Crowell & Conner, a partnership, joined by Texas & Plains Oil & Gas Company, a corporation, instituted this suit against P. L. Howard and Weowna Oil Company, a corporation, Wichita Falls & Western Railway Company, a corporation, and Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company, a corporation, joining as codefendant E. C. Schaff, the receiver of said companies, and Mason Bros., a partnership, to enjoin the appellees from boring oil wells upon the right of way of said railway companies, alleging that appellants held contracts from the owners, conveying to them all the oil under 150 acres of land, and empowering them to produce the oil therefrom. It is alleged that the defendant Weowna Oil Company is a corporation composed of employes of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company, and that P. L. Howard is the manager of said corporation ; that Mason Bros, are drillers, holding a contract with Weowna Oil Company to drill for oil on the right of way of said companies adjoining the lands of appellants. The defendants filed an answer in which they contested by exception the right of the plaintiffs Crowell & Conner and Plains Oil & Gas Company, to maintain this action, for the reason that the petition did not show that plaintiffs had any interest in the land described in their petition; this question being raised both by general and special exception. The defendants further answered, alleging that they owned a leasehold estate in the land by virtue of a lease duly executed by the railway company through its president and receiver, C. E. Schaff. Defendants also filed a motion to dissolve the injunction upon the following grounds: First, because the plaintiffs’ petition was insufficient to show that they had a cause of action against defendants; second, because said petition is insufficient in that it does not disclose that the plaintiffs have any interest in the right of way of the defendant Wichita Falls & Northwestern Railway Company of Texas; third, because the Weowna Oil Company holds a valid oil, gas, and mineral lease from the owners of the fee of said land embracing a strip 100 feet wide and running across the Christopher Winters survey; that said land was acquired by deed from M. Dodson, conveying the fee-simple title to the same to the Wichita Falls & Northwestern Railway Company, and that the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company is the lessor and successor of the Wichita Falls & Northwestern Railway Company; that said railway companies have, through their duly authorized officers, granted to the defendant Weowna Oil Company the right to drill upon said strip of land for oil and gas, and, though it might be true that the drilling and operation of wells upon said land by defendants would draw oil from out of and from under the land leased by plaintiffs, yet defendants have the right under the law to operate such wells upon, the land and plaintiffs have no right to complain thereof. The motion to dissolve was verified by the affidavit of one of the defendants. The motion was heard, and the court, after hearing all the evidence and considering the propositions of law raised by the exceptions of defendants, entered a general order sustaining the motion *912 to dissolve the injunction, from winch order plaintiffs have appealed.
“The statute confers tho right on such corporations [railways] to own the fee in lands, whether these be necessary to the operation of the company’s business -or not, though in the one case they are required to alienate them, but in the other not. There is nothing in the article evidencing an intention to take away from a railway company, so long as it owns the fee in land, the rights and powers usually incident to such ownership; and the power of the Legislature to do this may be questioned unless in a case where this may become necessary as the police regulation. Tho ownership of land, when the estate is a fee, carries with it the right to use the land in any manner not hurtful to others; and the right to- lease it to others, and therefore derive profit, is an incident of such ownership.”
While it is true, as contended by appellants, that corporations are generally restricted to the objects of their creation, and but for the language just quoted, intimating that the Legislature would have no right to limit the powers of a railroad company over land owned by it in fee, when it was not such land as the law requires it to alienate, we would hold that article 1164, providing that no corporation, domestic or foreign, doing businéss in this state, shall employ or use its property directly or indirectly for any other purpose whatever than to accomplish the legitimate objects of its creation or those permitted by law to be applicable. Article 1164, title 25, chapter 3, is part of the statutory law applying to corporations generally, and but for the holding in the Calcasieu Company Case we would not hesitate to hold as the law of this case. Judge Stayton seems not to have considered this article of the statute at the time he rendered the decision in the Calcasieu Lumber Company Case. To the same effect is the case of Stephenson et al. v. St. Louis Southern Ry. Co. of Texas, 181 S. W. 569, in which writ of error was finally refused by the Supreme Court. The case of Right of Way Oil Co. v. Gladys City Oil & Gas Co., 106 Tex. 94, 157 S. W. 737, 51 L. R. A. (N. S.) 268, and Id., 137 S. W. 171, is not authority in this case, since it is clear from the language of the deed considered in that case that an easement only was conveyed.
Finding no reversible error, the judgment is affirmed.
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Reference
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- CROWELL & CONNER Et Al. v. HOWARD Et Al.
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