Oklahoma v. Texas, 265 U.S. 505 (1924)
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Oklahoma v. Texas
No. 15, Original
Order fixing time for filing suggestions, etc., entered May 5, 1924
Argued on suggestions, etc., May 26, 1924
Decided June 9, 1924
265 U.S. 505
IN EQUITY
Syllabus
1. Where a receivership was necessary for the protection of oil and gas lands whose ownership depended upon the establishment of an interstate boundary -- the primary object of the suit -- and the boundary, as finally established, lay between the lines claimed by opposing parties, held that the general expenses of the receivership were apportionable against the several funds derived by the receiver from operation of oil and gas wells, whether on one side or the other of the boundary established, and that funds arising from wells operated by claimants under the receiver’s supervision, causing less expense, should be assessed on a lower basis than funds arising from wells operated by him directly. P. 507.
2. In apportioning general receivership expenses against funds derived by the receiver from oil and gas wells operated under his supervision by lessees of the owners, held that the charge should be against each fund as an entirety, and be deducted from the owner’s and lessee’s shares thereof pro rata. P. 511.
3. The expense or loss of work done by the receiver in this cause on unremunerative wells in the "River Bed Area," said area belonging wholly to the United States, may be charged against receivership funds derived from remunerative wells in that area. P. 511.
4. Trespassers who drilled productive and unproductive wells for oil in land of the United States before it was put into the receivership have no equitable claim to be reimbursed for the cost of the unproductive out of fund derived by the receiver from the productive wells. Id.
5. The order hereinbefore made authorizing the receiver, where any well in the said "River Bed Area" was drilled to production prior to the receivership, to repay the cost of the work (see256 U.S. 607) should be amended to include a certain well which was excluded from the order. P. 512.
6. Where private claimants drilled productive oil wells on land afterwards taken into a receivership and adjudged the exclusive property of the United States, held that a person who, as contractor, participated in drilling one of the wells and whose equipment, so used, was taken and sold by the receiver was entitled to an order authorizing the receiver to pay him the proceeds of such sale, but that a wrong committed against him by one of the claimants before the receivership in taking forcible possession of the well and converting part of his equipment could not be adjudicated in this litigation and compensated from funds derived by the receiver from the wells claimed by the aggressor. Id.
Upon consideration of certain questions arising upon a report of the receiver in this cause.