## Facts

- Four consolidated quiet-title actions concerned severed mineral interests (oil and gas) beneath section 31 in San Benito County, California.
- Plaintiffs claimed fractional mineral interests as successors to stockholders of two corporations (Ashurst Oil, Land and Development Company and California Oil Products Company) that acquired mineral rights in 1910 and later lost their corporate charters.
- A prior adjudication determined that, after forfeiture, the corporations’ stockholders became co-owners of the mineral estate proportionate to shareholdings, subject to liquidation trusteeship and, as to one group, a mortgage lien.
- Defendants were surface owners and lessees claiming title to the minerals through the surface chain, prior quiet-title decrees, and defenses including abandonment, adverse possession, laches, estoppel, and limitations.
- For decades, defendants and predecessors occupied and used the surface while plaintiffs and predecessors did not assert mineral rights; mineral development became valuable only after later oil discovery.
- One plaintiff group (Weber successors) was linked to a probate decree stating certain corporate shares were tendered to heirs as “worthless,” and the heirs refused to accept them.

## Issues

1. Whether a severed mineral interest classified as a profit à prendre can be abandoned, and what proof is required.
2. Whether long-term surface possession can establish adverse possession or prescriptive title to a severed mineral estate.
3. Whether plaintiffs’ long delay bars relief by laches, estoppel, or statutes of limitation.
4. Whether prior quiet-title judgments extinguished plaintiffs’ mineral interests when the mineral owners were not joined or served.
5. Whether the Weber successors could proceed on a representative (class) basis.
6. Whether defendants could defeat Gerhard’s title by attacking the legality of his acquisition of others’ mineral claims, and whether asserted mortgages reached the mineral estate.

## Decision

- The court held severed mineral interests (profits à prendre) are capable of abandonment, but abandonment requires nonuse plus a clear, unequivocal intent to relinquish.
- The court found no substantial evidence of abandonment for the Gerhard, Solomon, and Mettler plaintiffs.
- The court found abandonment as to the Weber plaintiffs based on their predecessors’ express probate refusal to accept the shares as worthless.
- The court held defendants did not acquire the severed mineral interests by adverse possession or prescription because surface occupancy did not constitute open, notorious, hostile possession of the mineral estate.
- The court rejected laches as a bar where defendants had not held the mineral estate adversely in a manner that would notify mineral owners and establish prejudice sufficient to cut off record rights.
- The court held prior quiet-title decrees did not bind absent mineral interest holders who were known or reasonably ascertainable and not made parties.
- The court denied the Weber plaintiffs’ attempted class action because the claims and defenses were not suitable for representative treatment.
- The court held the asserted mortgage defense did not encumber plaintiffs’ mineral interests as claimed and rejected defendants’ attempt to invalidate Gerhard’s title based on alleged illegality in his acquisition transactions.
- The judgment against Gerhard was reversed; the judgment against the Weber plaintiffs was affirmed to the extent based on abandonment; other portions were reversed or modified consistent with these rulings.

## Legal Principles

- A severed mineral interest in oil and gas is a profit à prendre and an incorporeal hereditament.
- Such an incorporeal mineral interest may be abandoned, but abandonment requires both nonuse and a clear, decisive manifestation of intent to relinquish; mere passage of time is insufficient.
- Adverse possession of a severed mineral estate requires acts that are open, notorious, and hostile as to the mineral interest itself; surface use alone is consistent with surface ownership and does not establish hostile possession of minerals.
- Laches requires prejudice tied to the plaintiff’s delay; where the defendant has not adversely possessed the severed mineral estate, delay alone will not bar the mineral owner’s claim.
- Quiet-title judgments generally bind only parties who were properly joined or served; identifiable record holders of mineral interests are not extinguished by decrees entered without their participation.
- Defenses based on alleged illegality in a claimant’s acquisition of title generally cannot be asserted by strangers to those transactions to defeat the claimant’s property interest.

## Conclusion

The court protected record severed mineral owners from losing subsurface rights through mere surface occupancy and long dormancy, limiting abandonment to cases with clear intent to relinquish and restricting the preclusive effect of quiet-title decrees to parties properly brought before the court.


Gerhard v. Stephens, 68 Cal. 2d 864 (Cal. 1968)