## Facts

- Mary Greer and family partitioned an 80-acre tract in Wharton County, Texas into four 20-acre tracts; each sister received the surface and minerals in one tract plus a one-fourth nonparticipating royalty interest (NPRI) in each of the other three tracts.
- Greer received Tract 3 and held NPRIs in Tracts 1, 2, and 4.
- Tracts 1 and 2 were later leased; production was obtained through pooling into the SixS Frels Gas Unit, allowing Greer to receive royalty attributable to her NPRIs in Tracts 1 and 2.
- In 1997, Greer leased minerals in Tracts 3 and 4, then executed a royalty deed to Steger Energy Corp.
- The deed’s specific description identified a unit located in a different survey (the Barnard Survey) in which Greer owned no interest.
- The deed also included a broad general grant (Mother Hubbard–type) clause stating an intent to convey all of Greer’s royalty and overriding royalty interests in the county, whether properly described or not.
- After the deed, a new well was drilled on Greer’s Tract 3, and Tract 3 was pooled into the Greer #1 Gas Unit.
- J. Hiram Moore, Ltd. later acquired Steger’s interest and claimed the deed conveyed all of Greer’s county-wide royalty interests; Greer asserted she did not intend such a conveyance.

## Issues

1. Whether the royalty deed unambiguously conveyed all of Greer’s royalty and overriding royalty interests in Wharton County by virtue of the general grant clause, despite a specific description of property in which Greer owned no interest.
2. Whether summary judgment was proper where the deed’s specific description and general grant clause pointed to materially different scopes of conveyance.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas held the deed was ambiguous because the specific description and sweeping general grant clause materially conflicted.
- The Court affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment reversing summary judgment for Moore.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings, including fact-finding on the parties’ intent.

## Legal Principles

- Deed construction is a question of law only when the instrument is unambiguous; a deed is ambiguous if, within its four corners, it is reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation.
- A material conflict between a deed’s specific property description and a broad general grant clause can create ambiguity about the scope of the conveyance.
- Mother Hubbard/general grant clauses are not automatically dispositive when their breadth, combined with other deed language and the grantor’s actual ownership, creates uncertainty as to what was intended to be conveyed.
- When a deed is ambiguous, intent may require fact-finder resolution, and summary judgment construing the deed as a matter of law is improper.

## Conclusion

Because the deed specifically described property in which the grantor owned no interest while also purporting to convey all county-wide royalty interests, the instrument was reasonably open to competing interpretations; the resulting ambiguity required remand for determination of intent rather than disposition by summary judgment.


J. Hiram Moore, Ltd. v. Greer, 172 S.W.3d 609 (Tex. 2005)