Durbin Bond & Co., Inc. v. Mrs. Lucille B. Gillis, Widow of Alfred Gillis, and Roy M. Watson

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment by the trial court without a jury in favor of the plaintiffs who sought damages from the defendant, as lessee under an oil lease on eighty acres of land for the failure of lessee to drill a well in search for oil or gas, which plaintiffs asserted it obligated itself to do under the terms of the lease.

The appeal presents two questions for review: The first is whether the lease imposed an absolute liability on the lessee to drill a well notwithstanding the drilling of a dry hole on an adjacent tract or merely imposed such obligation on…