JAMES v. UNKNOWN TRUSTEES

JAMES v. UNKNOWN TRUSTEES
1953 OK 136
257 P.2d 520
208 Okla 502
Case Number: 35335
Decided: 05/05/1953
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Syllabus

¶0 When on appeal it appears from the pleadings that the rights claimed by the plaintiff in error have been formerly and finally determined in another action, the judgment rendered on the pleadings will be affirmed.

Appeal from District Court, Garvin County; Ben T. Williams, Judge.

Action by E.E. James to establish an interest in certain real property. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Owen F. Renegar, Oklahoma City, for plaintiff in error.

Hill & Godfrey, Oklahoma City, for defendant in error George Woodward, Jr.

Keaton, Wells, Johnston & Lytle, Oklahoma City, for defendants in error C.E. McCaughey, and Helen McCaughey, R.D. Jones and Kathleen Jones, Walter K. Jones and Erlo O. Jones, John E. Laughlin and Beradine C. Laughlin.

Bulla & Bynum, Oklahoma City, for defendants in error Dickson Oil Company, Willard L. Miller, S.L. Routledge and Helen Routledge, Harold D. Herndon and Saltmount Oil Company.

Bohanon & Adams, Oklahoma City, for defendants in error L.S. Youngblood, J. Lee Youngblood, Kenneth Ellison, Bessie M. Ellison, A.L. Lawson and First National Bank & Trust Company.

Forrest M. Darrough, Walter Davison, and Richard P. Ryan, Tulsa, and Curtis & Blanton, Pauls Valley, for defendant in error Carter Oil Company.

Hall & Cotton, Oklahoma City, for defendants in error Romeo L. Perrault, Miss Solange Beauchim, Garfield S. Birnie and Frederick B. Locker, Inc.

Brown, Cund & Brown, Duncan, for defendants in error J.S. McCasland and T.H. McCasland, sole and surviving trustees of Three-In-One Oil & Gas Company.

George & George, Ardmore, for defendants in error Ward S. Merrick and Jinks Ikard Merrick.

C.H. Bowie, Pauls Valley, for defendants in error L.R. Bradshaw, Helen E. Bradshaw, W.C. Bonney and Wilma G. Bonney.

Garvin & Shumate, Pauls Valley, for defendants in error Treasury Island Royalties and Glenn O. Young.

JOHNSON, V.C.J.

¶1 This is an appeal from a judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendants establishing their rights to certain mineral interest claimed by plaintiff in an action brought by him in 1949. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the petition. On appeal to this court the order of the trial court was reversed and a new trial was directed. James V. Unknown Trustees, etc., of Three in One Oil & Gas Co., 203 Okla. 312, 220 P.2d 831, 20 A.L.R.2d 1077. Upon the retrial of the case as directed by the mandate, the defendants filed their answer and cross-petition. Plaintiff demurred thereto, which demurrer was overruled. Defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings which was sustained by the trial court, resulting in this appeal.

¶2 A motion to dismiss has been filed because the appeal is without merit and for the further reason that the record discloses that there is no issue between the plaintiff and defendants that has not heretofore been determined. We are of the opinion that this contention is correct and that the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.

¶3 In reply to the motion to dismiss, plaintiff argues that his rights were not adjudicated in Three-In-One Oil & Gas Co. v. Bradshaw, 192 Okla. 309, 135 P.2d 992. With this contention we agree. That in effect was the holding in James v. Unknown Trustees, etc., supra, but after the mandate of the lastnamed case was spread of record, defendants then, as above stated, filed an answer setting up the pleadings and judgment in cause No. 8234 in the district court of Garvin county, which, on appeal to this court, was docketed as No. 20862, and thereafter dismissed for want of prosecution. In the latter case it was determined that plaintiff had no right in the mineral interest in the real property involved.

¶4 This adjudication was final as to any rights plaintiff may have had in the property and the record now discloses that plaintiff's rights asserted in the appeal have heretofore been determined.

¶5 The order of the trial court sustaining the motion for judgment on the pleadings is affirmed.

¶6 HALLEY, C.J., and WELCH, O'NEAL, and BLACKBIRD, JJ., concur.