ConocoPhillips Company, et al., v. Ramirez, et al.
In January of this year, the Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion interpreting the intent of a testatrix’s choice of words used in her will to determine whether a bequest of “all right, title and interest” property included mineral interests. In reaching their decision, the Court had to review 80 years’ worth of prior conveyances of the property to understand the context of the words she chose.
The facts in ConocoPhillips Company, et al., v. Ramirez, et al. are as follows:
Two brothers owned 7,016 acres in Zapata County. They partitioned the surface estate, severed it from the minerals, and each brother took 3,058 surface acres and an undivided ½ interest in the minerals under the entire 7,016 acres. One of the brothers died, and he left ½ of the surface and mineral interest to his wife (Leonor) and the rest to his three children in equal shares.
Leonor and the three children partitioned the surface estate once again and specified that the partition agreement did “not . . . include oil, gas and other minerals which for the [time being] [were] to remain undivided”. 800 acres, known as “West El Milagro Pasture” went to Leonor. Another 400 acres, known as “East El Milagro Pasture” went to one child. The other children took the remaining 1,058 known as “Las Piedras Pasture” jointly. Later, Leonor swapped her surface for ½ of the surface in Las Piedras Ranch, and the “Deed of Exchange [did] not . . . include oil, gas and other minerals which [were] to remain undivided”.
When Leona passed, she left a will that “devised a life estate in ‘all of [her] right, title and interest in and to Ranch ‘Las Piedras’' to her son Leon Oscar Sr. with the remainder to his living children in equal shares. Leonor devised the residuary of her estate equally to her three children”. For 18 years the three siblings behaved (through the signing of mineral leases) as though they all owned an equal interest in the minerals under the entire 7,016 acres. Then, Leon Oscar Sr. passed away.
Leon Oscar Sr.’s children sued their aunt and uncle, their uncle’s business, as well as both Conoco Phillips and EOG. They claimed that “their father’s life estate under their grandmother’s will included her interest in not only the surface of Las Piedras Ranch but also the minerals beneath it”. Therefore, they claimed, they alone owned the mineral interest in Las Piedras Ranch. Leon Oscar Sr.’s children won at trial and were awarded ownership of the mineral interest and $12 million. The court of appeals affirmed.
The Texas Supreme Court acknowledged that “’[i]n construing a will, the court’s focus is on the testatrix’s intent’, which ‘must be ascertained from the language found within the four corners of the will’, if possible, and ‘determined as of the time the will is executed. [W]hen a term in a will ‘is open to more than one construction,’ a court can consider ‘the circumstances existing when the will was executed.’” The Court noted that “Leonor’s bequest of a life estate to Leon Oscar Sr. capitalize[d] ‘Ranch ‘Las Piedras’’ and place[d] the name in quotation marks, indicating that the term has a specific meaning to Leonor and her family.” The Court pointed out that of the prior conveyances and agreements “clearly designate the 1,058- acre tract of land known as Las Piedras Ranch and Las Piedras Pasture as a surface estate only.”
Therefore, despite the use of the words “all of [her] right, title and interest”, because Leonora identified the bequest to her son as “Ranch ‘Las Piedras,’” the bequest was only intended to include the surface. The Court reversed the court of appeals’ judgment, and concluded by stating that “Had there been any doubt about the meaning of his mother’s will, it surely was in Leon Oscar Sr.’s interest to raise it rather than share the mineral interest with his siblings and join with them and his aunt in leasing the property.”