Hinkel

This action was brought to recover damages in the sum of twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars upon a stockholder’s liability against defendants, who were stockholders in the Lorene Oil Company, a corporation.

The damage claimed arose from the removal of a quantity of casing from a certain oil well which had been drilled by the Lorene Oil Company upon the plaintiff’s land in the Coalinga oil fields, upon the abandonment by that company of said lands and of its operations thereon under a certain lease. The action was based upon a breach of the terms of the lease, which had been entered into by the parties thereto under the following circumstances: On the sixteenth day of March, 1907, the plaintiff entered into a lease with one Wilcox, with the object in view that the former’s land should be explored for oil and developed. The agreement required Wilcox to drill a well to a depth of at least three thousand feet, unless oil should be discovered in quantities of twenty-five barrels of oil per day at a less depth. If oil was discovered, the lessee was to pay to the lessor one-eighth royalty, and he was also given an option to purchase the property for the sum of twenty thousand…