holding that pooling clauses and the relevant entirety clause affect an NPRI owner’s aggregate ownership
How later courts described this case
- holding that pooling clauses and the relevant entirety clause affect an NPRI owner’s aggregate ownership
- though executive-rights holder has the exclusive right to lease, that right does not extend to pooling a nonparticipating royalty interest (NPRI) because pooling has the effect of diminishing the NPRI's'interest;'however, the NPRI can ratify a pooling agreement and take a propor tional share even if the executive-exceeded its authority in the first instance
- holding that filing suit ratifies a lease as a matter of law
- noting that a principal can ratify the unauthorized acts of an agent by bringing a suit to enforce the unauthorized act
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by London v. Merriman, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 1222 (1988)
Therefore, London concludes, the result reached by the Verble court simply followed from that act and not from a Ruiz and Montgomery analysis of the lease contract, and Verble is inapplicable to the instant case since no such express ratification offer occurred here.
The opinion
CALVERT, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I join in the dissenting opinion filed by Justice Walker. I append the following comment.
The holding of the court is that the filing of suit by Montgomery on May 12, 1964, constituted a ratification of the lease. The parties stipulated that a well was completed as a producer pn the Crutchfield Unit on October 9, 1956, and that shut-in royalty was paid from that date until May, 1958, when actual production was begun. The record reflects that Montgomery knew as early as July, 1957, that the well had been completed. The record thus reflects that Montgomery waited nearly seven years before he ratified the lease.
By agreeing that ratification has been effected by the judgment herein, I do not wish to be understood as agreeing that a non-participating royalty owner, with full knowledge of his rights, cannot lose his right to ratify through laches. See Nugent v. Freeman, 306 S.W.2d 167 (Tex.Civ.App.—Eastland 1957, n. r. e.). There was no plea of laches in this case.