Schoenberger v. Missouri Pacific Railroad

Elliott, J.:

Union Pacific Land Resources Company (UP) appeals the trial court judgment that it did not own fee title to the mineral rights it leased to Jason Oil Company, et al. (Jason).

We reverse.

The material facts are undisputed, as the parties agree with the trial court’s findings of fact. In 1887, an order condemned a strip of land for a railroad right-of-way. A month later, an individual conveyed by warranty deed most of a quarter section of land to the Memphis & Denver Town Company (Town), by which Town owned all mineral rights in the land described. Several months later, Town conveyed…