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Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 31 > Issue 7 (1933)

 

Abstract

The plaintiff, a remainderman, granted an "oil and gas lease to X, subject to the rights of the tenant by curtesy, Anderson. Anderson, seven years later, granted an "oil and gas lease" in the same premises to Y. Eventually both leases were acquired by the defendant who entered upon the land and drilled for oil. Anderson contended that he was entitled not only to the royalty stipulated in the lease made by him, but also to receive for his lifetime the income from the proceeds of the sale of the royalty for which the remainderman stipulated. The defendant contended that Anderson's lease was absolutely void on the ground that a life tenant cannot independently operate for gas and oil. Held, in a declaratory judgment proceeding brought by the plaintiff remainderman to determine the amount of oil royalties payable by the defendant, that with the acquisition by the defendant of both the life tenant's and the remainderman's interests, it had acquired complete rights as lessee; that the effect of the life tenant Anderson's lease was a grant by him of his possession of the property concerned, and that having bargained for his separate interest on his own account, he was entitled only to the royalty for which he stipulated in his lease. Orndoff v. Consumers' Fuel Co., (Pa. 1932) 162 Atl. 431.

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