Robbie Mae Alexander v. Texaco, Inc.

SIMPSON, Circuit Judge:

In the appeal in this non jury Texas diversity case, tried on stipulated facts, we are asked to interpret a deed executed prior to the enactment of a gross production tax on the oil produced from the deeded land and determine upon which party that tax should fall. The district court, 343 F.Supp. 663, found that the deed failed to transfer the burden of the tax from the grantors to the grantee. We affirm.

On April 25, 1930, R. E. Burt and P. S. Griffith, as Grantors, executed a deed to The Texas Company, as Grantee, conveying an undivided one-half interest in 727 acres of…