Price v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 267 U.S. 415 (1925)

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Price v. Magnolia Petroleum Company

No. 14

Argued November 13, 14, 1923
Decided March 2, 1925
267 U.S. 415

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT

OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Syllabus

The Oklahoma Enabling Act provided that sections 33 of the public lands, theretofore reserved, should be apportioned and disposed of as the legislature might prescribe; that, where any of the lands granted the state were valuable for minerals, they should not be sold before January 1, 1915, but might be leased for periods not exceeding five years on royalties, providing that agricultural lessees in possession should be reimbursed by the mining lessees for damages done their interests by mining operations; that the lands. "if sold," might be appraised and sold at public sale, under such regulations as the state might prescribe, the preference right to purchase at the highest bid being given the lessee "at time of such sale" -- held that an agricultural lessee was not entitled under the act to compel a sale of the land covered by his lease in order that he might purchase it, and that the state was authorized, finding the tract valuable for oil and gas, to execute an oil and gas lease to other parties, subject to the surface rights of the agricultural lessee. Act of June 16, 1906, §§ 8, 10, c. 3335, 34 Stat. 267. P. 421.

86 Okla. 105 affirmed.

Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma reversing a decree in favor of the plaintiff in error, Price and wife, in a suit brought by the petroleum company to enjoin them from interfering with its operations under an oil and gas lease on land covered by a prior agricultural lease to Price. The state intervened to assert its ownership of the land and uphold the oil and gas lease.