Home-Stake Production Co. v. Tri-State Pipe Co.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Harman, C.:

This is an action brought by plaintiff-appellee to partition a producing oil and gas lease.

There is no essential factual dispute. In 1948 defendant Simon Lebow purchased the lease in question from the original lessee who reserved an overriding royalty of a one-sixteenth interest of the seven-eighths’ working interest. The lease, known as the Wiley lease, is on property in the Bunion field in Harvey County. The same year Lebow assigned a one-fourth interest therein, subject to the override (with which we are not concerned), to Sohio Petroleum…