National Gas & Oil Co. v. Rizer

This is a declaratory judgment suit by a lessee, seeking to have declared void a lease signed by one of two joint tenants. Defendant’s motion for summary judgment was sustained and the complaint was dismissed. Plaintiff has appealed.

Plaintiff’s complaint alleges that the “existing controversy concerns the validity of the lease,” which he claims is “invalid in its entirety,” because defendant alone, of the two joint tenants, executed the lease as lessor.

This claim poses the decisive question in the case. The trial court decided the lease was “valid, binding and subsisting,” and ordered the…