Hughes

This is an appeal from a judgment for the defendants in an action which grew out of the assignment by defendants to the plaintiffs, Pasadena Petroleum Corporation and W. C. Handel, of a landowners’ overriding oil and gas royalty. The other plaintiffs were in turn assignees of a portion of this overriding royalty. The plaintiffs sued on the theory that the defendants had wronged them by the recording of a notice of rescission as a preliminary to a suit for cancellation. The trial court found in favor of the defendants on all of the essential issues.

The initial facts leading up to the specific differences involved in the present litigation are conceded by both sides. Through the estate of George L. Moody, deceased, of which Harley Hughes was the executor, the respondents became owners of government lots Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 in section 10, Township 32 south, Range 26 east, MDB&M in Kern County and by virtue of their reservation of a landowners’ overriding royalty in a lease executed in favor of the Superior Oil Company of California they were owners of an interest in the underlying mineral rights. The defendants initially believed that they were entitled to an overriding royalty of…