Dabney Oil Co. v. Providence Oil Co.

CONREY, P. J.

In this action a complaint was filed by the Dabney Oil Company to establish the plaintiff’s ownership of certain oil-bearing lands and to have certain of the defendants declared trustees for the plaintiff of property held in possession by them, and for an accounting. After the filing of plaintiff’s complaint an election of directors of plaintiff corporation was held and the control of the corporation passed from a board of directors which was acting in harmony with A. H. Butler & Company (a corporation) and others associated with them as stockholders in the Dabney Oil Company, to a new board of directors controlled by certain of the defendants. Under its new control the plaintiff caused a substitution of attorneys to be made herein and moved for a dismissal

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of plaintiff’s action as against the defendants A. T. Jergins, Palladium Investment Company, a corporation, and Midway Royal Petroleum Company, a corporation. At the time of substitution of a new attorney for the plaintiff corporation the court by order gave leave to said A. H. Butler & Company et al. (appearing by the same attorneys who had theretofore been employed as attorneys for the corporation), to file a complaint in intervention. That complaint was filed, and later an amended complaint in intervention was filed by the same interveners. The motion for dismissal of the action of the plaintiff as against the three defendants above mentioned and the demurrer of those defendants to the amended complaint in intervention came on for hearing at the same time. After argument it was ordered that the motion be granted; also that the demurrer of those three defendants to the amended complaint in intervention be sustained without leave to amend, and it was ordered that the action be dismissed as to the defendants Midway Royal Petroleum Company, A. T. Jergins, and Palladium Investment Company, and that the amended complaint in intervention be dismissed as to said defendants. The defendants named in the amended complaint in intervention are the same as the defendants named in the principal complaint. So far as the record shows, the action remains pending as to seven defendants other than the three affected by said orders of dismissal. The interveners have attempted to appeal “from the judgment of dismissal as to the defendants Midway Royal Petroleum Company, A. T. Jergins, and Palladium Investment Company, rendered in the above-entitled action on the first day of April, 1913, and from the whole of said judgment. ’ ’