DOUBLE FRACTIONS, WE MEET AGAIN: SHORTER AND THE LATEST WORD ON FLOATING ROYALTIES
Texas courts have spent years untangling older deeds that use the once-customary 1/8 royalty in ways that do not always correspond with ordinary arithmetic. The Eastland Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Shorter v. Coffield Family Properties, Ltd. adds another chapter to that line of cases and provides a useful reminder that, when construing a double-fraction deed, where the fractions appear may matter just as much as the fractions themselves. (The Eleventh Court of Appeals subsequently issued an Opinion on Motion for Rehearing on August 31, 2026.)
In Shorter, the Eastland Court of Appeals considered a 1944 deed conveying 640 acres in Borden County while reserving a royalty interest. The primary reservation described that interest as:
an undivided one-half of the usual and customary one-eighth (1/8) royalty
Later, in a provision addressing the grantee’s right to execute future leases, the deed described the grantors’ right as:
one-sixteenth (1/16) of all oil and gas and other minerals produced from said lands as a royalty interest.
The competing fractions presented the familiar question: Did the deed reserve a fixed 1/16 royalty, or did it reserve a floating 1/2 of the royalty provided under a future lease?
The court held that the grantors reserved a floating 1/2 royalty interest.
THE VAN DYKE STARTING POINT
The court began its analysis with the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Van Dyke v. Navigator Group. Van Dyke recognized the historical significance of 1/8 in older mineral instruments. Because 1/8 was so commonly used as the standard landowner’s royalty, parties sometimes used the fraction as a shorthand or placeholder for the landowner’s royalty generally, rather than strictly for its mathematical value.
Accordingly, when an older instrument uses a double fraction in which the second fraction is 1/8, Van Dyke instructs courts to begin with a presumption that 1/8 was used in this historical sense. Thus, a reservation of “one-half of the usual one-eighth royalty” may mean one-half of the landowner’s royalty, rather than a permanently fixed 1/16 interest.
The presumption, however, is not conclusive. As the Texas Supreme Court has emphasized, it is “readily and genuinely rebuttable.” The language and structure of the deed may demonstrate that the parties actually intended the fractions to operate arithmetically. Express language, provisions that cannot otherwise be harmonized, or the use of fractions in a manner demonstrating an arithmetic relationship may overcome the presumption.
The presence of a double fraction therefore begins the analysis. It does not end it.
WHY THE 1/16 LANGUAGE DID NOT FIX THE ROYALTY
At first glance, Shorter presents a substantial argument for a fixed royalty. The deed did not merely contain a reference to 1/16 somewhere in the instrument. It stated that the grantors’ “sole and only right” was to receive 1/16 of production.
Nevertheless, the Eastland court concluded that the language did not rebut the Van Dyke presumption. The structure of the deed was significant.
The double fraction appeared in the primary reservation that created the interest: “one-half of the usual and customary one-eighth (1/8) royalty.” Under Van Dyke, that language presumptively reserved one-half of the landowner’s royalty.
The 1/16 language appeared later, in the future-lease provision. Rather than treating the later fraction as redefining the interest created by the reservation, the court read the provisions together. If the landowner’s royalty was the historically customary 1/8, then a one-half floating royalty would produce 1/16. On that reading, the later 1/16 language was consistent with the interest already reserved.
In other words, the fact that 1/2 multiplied by 1/8 equals 1/16 did not, standing alone, establish that the parties intended to permanently fix the royalty at 1/16.
SHORTER AND CLIFTON: PLACEMENT AND CONTEXT MATTER
The significance of the deed’s structure becomes clearer when Shorter is compared with the Texas Supreme Court’s recent decision in Clifton v. Johnson.
Clifton also involved an instrument containing both a single fraction and a double fraction, but the fractions appeared in different provisions and served different functions. There, the deed’s granting clause first conveyed a standalone 1/128 interest. In a later future-lease provision, the deed again stated 1/128 and followed it with a parenthetical describing that figure as “1/16 of the usual 1/8 royalty.”
The Supreme Court concluded that the Van Dyke presumption applied but was rebutted by the deed itself. The standalone 1/128 appeared in the granting clause, and the later double fraction demonstrated how the parties arrived at that figure. As the Supreme Court put it, the double fraction effectively “show[ed] its work.” The deed therefore demonstrated an arithmetic use of 1/8 and created a fixed 1/128 interest.
Shorter presented what the Eastland court described as the “inverse scenario” of Clifton. There, the double fraction appeared in the primary reservation creating the royalty interest, while the single 1/16 fraction appeared later in the future-lease provision. Reading the deed as a whole, the court declined to give the later single-fraction product greater weight than the double fraction appearing in the primary reservation.
That distinction provides an important lesson. A deed containing both a double fraction and its mathematical product cannot necessarily be construed by simply performing the arithmetic. Instead, the fractions must be considered in the context of the deed as a whole, including the provisions in which they appear and the function each serves.
In Clifton, the single fraction helped define the interest, while the double fraction explained it. In Shorter, the double fraction appeared in the language creating the interest, while the later single fraction could be read consistently with the interest already reserved.
The numbers may resemble one another. Their function within the deed may not.
WHAT SHORTER MEANS FOR TITLE EXAMINATION
For title examiners, Shorter reinforces the importance of starting with the operative language of the instrument rather than with the calculator.
When an older deed contains language such as “one-half of the usual one-eighth royalty” and elsewhere refers to 1/16, the fact that those numbers mathematically correspond does not necessarily establish a fixed royalty. The deed must still be considered as a whole.
The analysis should begin by identifying where and how the interest is actually created. Is the double fraction contained in the operative granting or reservation clause? Does a single fraction appear first, with a later double fraction merely explaining how the parties reached that number? Are fractions repeated throughout the instrument in a manner demonstrating arithmetic intent? Or can the provisions be harmonized by understanding 1/8 in its historical sense as a reference to the landowner’s royalty?
Those questions help explain the different outcomes in Shorter and Clifton. In Clifton, the deed demonstrated that the parties were using the double fraction arithmetically to explain an independently stated fixed interest. In Shorter, the deed began by reserving one-half of the “usual and customary” 1/8 royalty, and the later reference to 1/16 did not override the interest created by that operative language.
As a separate consideration, Shorter also addressed the presumed-grant doctrine, which looks beyond the four corners of the instrument to the parties’ historical treatment of the interest. Consistent with Van Dyke and Clifton, the court treated presumed grant as a distinct inquiry from deed construction and reiterated that the doctrine should be considered when properly raised.
Ultimately, Shorter is another reminder that double-fraction cases are not resolved by arithmetic alone. The placement, context, and purpose of the fractions matter. For title purposes, the better approach is to first determine what interest the operative language creates and then ask whether the remaining fractions define that interest, limit it, or simply explain what it would have yielded under the historically customary 1/8 royalty.