## Facts

- Troy C. Vines and Ruby N. Vines married, later divorced, and then remarried.
- In 1951, they executed an oil and gas lease covering two tracts in Van Zandt County, Texas (Tract A and Tract B).
- In the 1953 divorce, Ruby received Tract A as her separate property and Troy received Tract B as his separate property.
- In 1959, the couple executed a joint will giving the survivor use of all property for life, and upon the death of both, devising Ruby’s separate real estate to her heirs.
- Ruby died in 1959; Troy took a life estate in Tract A, with vested remainder interests in Ruby’s heirs.
- The 1951 lease was in effect and producing at Ruby’s death, but expired by its terms in 1961.
- In 1963, Troy executed a new oil and gas lease on Tract A and lessees/assignees claimed rights under that lease.
- Ruby’s heirs sued to construe the will and determine whether royalties and bonuses under the 1963 lease belonged to Troy as life tenant or to the remainder estate as corpus.
- The trial court and court of civil appeals applied the open mine doctrine to Tract A and upheld Troy’s asserted right to treat proceeds from the 1963 lease as life-estate income.

## Issues

1. Whether the open mine doctrine allowed a life tenant to treat royalties and bonuses from a new post-death oil and gas lease as income when a producing lease existed at the testator’s death but later expired.
2. Whether royalties and bonuses from the 1963 lease on Tract A were corpus for the remaindermen or income for the life tenant under the terms of the joint will.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ application of the open mine doctrine to Tract A.
- The court held the open mine doctrine did not authorize Troy, as life tenant, to capture royalties and bonuses from the 1963 lease after the 1951 lease expired.
- The court treated the 1963 lease as opening new mineral development for life-estate purposes, making royalties and bonuses part of the corpus owed to the remaindermen.
- The case was remanded for entry of judgment consistent with the ruling as to Tract A, while unchallenged portions of the judgments were left undisturbed.

## Legal Principles

- Mineral royalties and bonuses are generally part of the corpus of the estate; a life tenant is ordinarily entitled only to interest or income attributable to the corpus.
- The open mine doctrine is a limited exception permitting a life tenant to receive proceeds as income only from mineral production that was open or authorized at the inception of the life estate.
- Expiration of a preexisting lease after the life estate begins ends the basis for treating later leasing as a continuation of the testator’s authorized mineral exploitation.
- A life tenant lacks inherent authority to open new mines or undertake new mineral leasing that depletes the mineral estate, absent express or clearly implied authority in the creating instrument.
- In construing a will that grants a life estate to a survivor with remainders to designated heirs, courts protect the remaindermen’s mineral interests unless the will indicates broader mineral powers for the life tenant.

## Conclusion

The court held that a producing lease in place at the testator’s death did not permit a life tenant to claim royalties and bonuses from a later, new lease executed after the original lease expired; proceeds from the new lease were corpus for the remaindermen, with the life tenant limited to income derived from corpus.


Moore v. Vines, 474 S.W.2d 437 (Tex. 1971)