Chapapas v. Delhi-Taylor Oil Corp.

POPE, Justice.

This case concerns the rights and duties between an oil and gas lessee and a surface lessee. Appellant, George Chapapas, sued appellees, Delhi-Taylor Oil Corporation and Mayfair Minerals, Inc., for damages for breach of their oral agreement to pay damages to Chapapas for his forbearance in irrigating lands which would flood a proposed drill site for a gas well. Chapapas relied solely upon the oral agreement.

Appellees owned an oil and gas lease on the lands in suit, as well as other adjoining lands. Chapapas, at a date subsequent to the oil and gas lease, became the lessee of an…