Title Insurance & Trust Co. v. Amalgamated Oil Co.

On April 10, 1919, plaintiff’s testator, C. C. Conroy, executed and delivered to one Thomas H. T. Purman a lease of certain land situated in the county of Los Angeles. The lease gave to the lessee the exclusive right to enter upon the lands described therein, and to drill for, produce, extract, and take oil, gas, asphaltum, and other hydrocarbon substances from said land, and is what is commonly ■known and referred to as an oil lease. On May 9, 1919, said Thomas H. T. Purman and his wife, Jessie Purman, assigned said lease to the defendant herein, the Amalgamated Oil Company.

The portions of the lease material to a decision of this case are as follows:

It does not appear that the lessee, or his assignee, the defendant herein, ever entered into possession of the lands described in said lease, or ever commenced the drilling of any well thereon. We assume that no such entry was made, and that no well ivas ever drilled, for it was stipulated at the trial that the defendant, by virtue of the right given it under the assignment, had elected to keep said lease alive, by the payment of the monthly payments as provided in said lease, and had paid to the said C. C. Conroy the monthly…