# Clifton v. Johnson Supreme Court of Texas, No. 23-0671 **Clifton v. Johnson, No. 23-0671 (Tex. Mar. 13, 2026). Holding: The deed's plain language rebuts the presumption that "1/8" in a double fraction refers to the entire mineral estate, because the parties used 1/8 for its ordinary numerical value, so the deed conveys a fixed 1/128 nonparticipating royalty on future leases.** Practice areas: oil and gas, real property ## Key issues - A 1951 deed's "1/128 (1/16 of the usual 1/8 royalty)" language rebuts the double-fraction presumption because it uses 1/8 for its ordinary numerical value, so the deed conveyed a fixed 1/128 royalty interest, not a floating 1/16. - The Court reversed the court of appeals and reinstated the trial court's summary judgment for the Cliftons. ## Factual History In May 1951 J.B. Young, Elizabeth Cornell, and H.D. Cornell executed a deed, labeled a "Royalty Deed," that conveyed "an undivided one-one hundred and twenty-eighth (1/128) interest" in the oil, gas and other minerals under tracts in Reeves County, while reserving the rentals and bonus and stipulating that the land was under leases with a 1/8 royalty and that the grantees would receive "one-sixteenth (1/16) of the royalties" under them (Opinion, PDF p. 2). For future leases the deed gave the grantees "a 1/128 (1/16 of the usual 1/8 royalty) part" of production taken and saved under them (Opinion, PDF pp. 2-3). For seven decades the grantees and their successors received a fixed 1/128 royalty without dispute until Scott Johnson, a successor of the grantees, claimed in 2020 that the deed conveyed a floating 1/16 nonparticipating royalty (Opinion, PDF p. 3). ## Procedural History Johnson sued the Cliftons, successors of the Cornells, for a declaratory judgment, and the trial court denied his motion for summary judgment and granted the Cliftons', declaring that the deed conveyed a fixed 1/128 royalty (Opinion, PDF p. 3). While Johnson's appeal was pending this Court decided *Van Dyke v. Navigator Group*, and the Eighth Court of Appeals then relied heavily on the double-fraction presumption to hold that the deed conveyed a floating 1/16 royalty, refused to consider the Cliftons' presumed-grant argument as forfeited and refused to remand in the interest of justice (Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). The Supreme Court granted the Cliftons' petition for review, heard argument on December 2, 2025 and on March 13, 2026 reversed (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 4, 13). ## Issues Presented - The Cliftons (Opinion, PDF p. 4): whether the court of appeals misapplied the *Van Dyke* double-fraction presumption to the deed and, at a minimum, whether the case should be remanded in the interest of justice for the trial court to consider the presumed-grant doctrine. - Johnson (Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4): whether the deed conveyed a floating 1/16 royalty rather than the fixed 1/128 royalty the parties had treated it as conveying. ## Standard(s) of Review The Court construed the deed as it construes any contract, primarily seeking the parties' intended meaning as expressed in the text they adopted and considering all the deed's language (Opinion, PDF p. 5). ## Legal Arguments **Whether the deed conveys a floating 1/16 or a fixed 1/128 royalty.** **Johnson (Respondent):** The deed's use of "1/8" within a double fraction invokes the presumption that "1/8" refers to the entire mineral estate, so it conveyed a floating 1/16 nonparticipating royalty and everyone had misunderstood the deed for 70 years (Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). **The Cliftons (Petitioners):** The deed's text rebuts the double-fraction presumption, and in the alternative the case should be remanded in the interest of justice so the trial court can consider the presumed-grant doctrine, which *Van Dyke* clarified after the trial and the briefing (Opinion, PDF pp. 4, 10). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case The opinion does not recite the petition's reasons for review, but it describes the case as presenting the two issues addressed in *Van Dyke*, double fractions and the presumed-grant doctrine, which the court of appeals applied for the first time after that decision (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 3-4). ## Practice Area Tags oil-and-gas, real-property ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petitions for review from the Eighth Court of Appeals (El Paso); argued December 2, 2025; opinion by Justice Young issued March 13, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 13). ## Amicus Involvement None noted ## Holding The deed's plain language rebuts the presumption that "1/8" in a double fraction refers to the entire mineral estate, because the parties used 1/8 for its ordinary numerical value, so the deed conveys a fixed 1/128 nonparticipating royalty on future leases (Opinion, PDF pp. 2, 9). ## Standard of Review Construction of the deed under ordinary contract principles, looking to all of its language to deduce the parties' intent (Opinion, PDF p. 5). ## Court's Reasoning *Van Dyke* directs courts to begin with the presumption that a double fraction was used purposefully and that "1/8" reflects the entire mineral estate, but the presumption is "readily and genuinely rebuttable" by express language, distinct provisions that cannot be harmonized with the term-of-art reading, or repeated arithmetical use of fractions (Opinion, PDF pp. 5-6). Unlike the instruments in *Van Dyke* and *Hysaw*, this deed expresses the product, "1/128," in both the granting clause and the future-lease clause, uses the parenthetical double fraction to show its work, and harmonizes cleanly because 1/16 of the present-lease 1/8 royalty equals 1/128, so the presumption is rebutted (Opinion, PDF pp. 7-8). The future-lease royalty is fixed and not floating because it is a 1/128 portion of royalties on the entire original tract, an independent conveyance separate from the granting clause (Opinion, PDF p. 9). The Court did not decide whether remand for the presumed-grant doctrine was required, explaining that the doctrine asks who owns the property today by looking at long-asserted adverse claims, and that applying it here would lead to the same result as the text, a fixed 1/128 royalty (Opinion, PDF pp. 10-13). ## Disposition Court of appeals' judgment reversed and the trial court's summary judgment reinstated (Opinion, PDF p. 13). ## Vote Breakdown, Authorship, and Any Concurrence/Dissent Justice Young delivered the opinion of the Court, with no separate writings (Opinion, PDF p. 1). --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/23-0671. AI-generated summary of the Court's opinion, orders and the parties' briefs, with pin cites to the page of each document; verify against the Court's own documents at search.txcourts.gov.