Sutphin v. Speik

YORK, Acting P. J. This action is one to recover royalties acquired through an assignment of an oil and gas lease. The original lease was between California Petroleum Corporation, lessor, and C. K. Cole, lessee, and covered lots 12 and 14, block 118, Huntington Beach 17th Street section, in the city of Huntington Beach. Cole assigned the lease to his wife, Frank H. Cole, who, on January 7, 1927, executed an assignment to the plaintiff of a participating royalty interest of 5 per cent of the gross total production of all oil, gas and other hydrocarbons produced from the oil well then drilling upon the property covered by the lease ‘ ‘ or any substitute well therefor”. Subsequently, on March 21, 1927, the Coles assigned to defendant all of their right, title and interest in the lease.

The record shows that at the time plaintiff acquired his interest by assignment there was drilling on the property a well known as well No. 3 or Cole No. 3, which was the only well then on the property. About October, 1932, a fire destroyed the derrick and equipment, and in June, 1933, defendant redrilled the well, using part of the old hole, and renamed the well No. 3-A. Well No. 3-A was placed on production in August, 1933, and in October, 1933, well No. 4. New well No. 4 had no appreciable effect upon the production from well No. 3-A, but because well No. 4 was a new well and had to be operated to keep it from sanding up, well No. 3-A was shut down and all of the allowable production allocated to both wells was thereafter taken from well No. 4.

It is also shown that defendant wrote letters to plaintiff on September 2, 1930, September 11, 1930, and March 15, 1933, requesting plaintiff to give 50 per cent of his 5 per cent royalty interest to defendant, and that defendant would then redrill well No. 3, but plaintiff refused to do this, and thereafter defendant refused to pay plaintiff any income from the oil production, although he had redrilled well No. 3 and brought it back on production, and had brought in well No. 4 on the same lots. On October 27, [518193]3, plaintiff brought action to recover from defendant the sum of $3,254.65, representing his 5 per cent royalty of' all oil, gas and other hydrocarbons produced from the well from August 1, 1933, to and including the date of filing of the complaint. At the conclusion of the introduction of evidence, during the trial of the action in March, 1934, plaintiff, upon leave of the court duly obtained, filed a supplemental complaint alleging that defendant became indebted to him between October.1, 1933, and December 31, 1933, in the additional sum of $3,134.17. The trial court found for the plaintiff in accordance with the allegations of the complaint and the supplemental complaint and rendered its judgment for $6,388.82, together with interest and costs. This appeal is from the judgment so rendered.