W. D. Dinwiddie Et Ux. v. American Trading and Production Corporation

This is an appeal from a temporary injunction order enjoining appellants Evelyn Rose Dinwiddie and W. D. Dinwiddie from interfering with appellee American Trading and Production Corporation in its use of a road across lands in the possession of appellants to reach land on which appellee owns an oil and gas lease. The controversy centers on a road leading to the oil and gas lease and not on the land, Section 36, actually covered by the oil and gas lease. It was stipulated on trial that appellants refusal of use of the road by appellee was as to Sections 25, 30, 31 and 32. The road was put in by the Pasotex Pipe Line Company in 1928 under written easements whereby it was granted the right to lay and maintain pipe lines together with the right of egress and ingress along the pipe line way, together with the right to maintain a camp as living quarters for its employees. It appears that Pasotex has used the road through the years in the maintenance of its pipe line, and that its employees have used it as a means of going to and from the nearby town of Orla. Pasotex employees children were transported over the road by school bus to and from school. The sections of land involved in this controversy were for many years ranched by Jim Cooksey under surface leases, and following his death appellants came into possession under surface leases, in February 1961. Neither the owners of the land nor Pasotex are parties to the suit.