Ivey v. Phillips Petroleum Co.

ALLRED, District Judge.

Plaintiff, a resident citizen of Texas and the owner of an 800-acre farm in San Patricio County, Texas, sued defendant, a foreign corporation, for damages to the surface of his land and for injuries to the oil and gas bearing sands under his land.

Defendant owns an oil and gas lease, with four producing wells, on 500 acres of plaintiff’s farm.

In July, 1938, one Harlan Grimes owned and operated a 40-acre lease on the Coggin lands offsetting the 500-acre lease on the south. Grimes had drilled two wells on this lease. His No. 2 well was brought in as a producer on July 13,…