Local Governments Continue to Fight States for Right to Govern Fracking
Under Van Dyke, deeds with double-fraction royalty reservations referencing “1/8” are presumed to reserve a floating royalty interest unless clearly contradicted. Defenses like waiver, ratification, and limitations cannot...more
In Senterra Ltd. v. Winland, 2019-Ohio-4387, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals held that an examiner, after identifying the root of title and finding that an exception to marketable record title applies, should review...more
Let’s assume you inherited a 150 acre farm in Lycoming County that has been owned by your family since 1909. In 2020, you are approached by ABC Drilling about a new oil and gas lease for the farm. You retain counsel and...more
Introduction - “No one has a vested interest in any rule of common law.” Meech v. Hillhaven W., 776 P.2d 488, 494 (Mont. 1989). Luckily the Montana legislature has codified the common law rule of after-acquired title as a...more
Foreshadowing a grim future for family weddings and funerals, Bell and Petsch v. Petch is a property dispute over five tracts of land in Gillespie County, Texas, in which siblings are the combatants. The events are less...more
If you are scoring at home, count Permico Royalties LLC v. Barron Properties, Ltd., as a win for “floating” in the fixed-or-floating royalty battles. Permico, successor to grantors in a 1937 Deed for a tract in Ward County,...more
Let’s assume you own a 160-acre farm in Washington County. Your father purchased the farm in 1992 from a local farmer named Jones. (the “1992 Deed”). At the time your father purchased the farm, there was an oil and gas lease...more
Rhetorical Question: When will Texas be done with fixed/floating royalty cases such as Johnson et al v. Clifton et al? Rhetorical Answer: When scriveners of deeds that are open to eight conceivably plausible meanings...more
Let’s assume your grandfather owned 99 acres in Washington County. In 1955, he sells a small portion of the farm to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in order to facilitate the construction of new State Route 39. This acreage...more
The calculation of production royalties and the deduction of post-production costs remains a controversial topic here in Pennsylvania. As we have written before, there is another frustrating and often confusing...more
Let’s begin with some Texas law on what a seller sells when he executes a deed: Generally, a Texas real property deed will confer upon the grantee the greatest estate as the terms of the instrument will permit. This...more
You might recall this post on Broadway National Bank, Trustee v. Yates Energy Corporation. We now have Yates Energy Corporation et al v. Broadway National Bank, Trustee, the court of appeals’ ruling after remand. Recall the...more
Those who continue to be horrified by Broadway National Bank, Trustee v. Yates Energy Corp. should be relieved that the result in Endeavor Energy Resources, LP v. Anderson was more equitable. In Yates, the Texas Supreme Court...more
The question presented in Aaron v. Fisher et al: Did mineral deeds bestow separate property upon the grantees by gift, or did they convey a community property interest to the grantees and their spouses by sale for...more
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. International Development Corporation resolved the question, In a 100 year old Pennsylvania deed is a “subject to” provision an exception to a grant or a warranty disclaimer?...more
It was jurisprudential Groundhog Day as the Supreme Court of Texas handed down Nettye Engler Energy v. Bluestone Natural Resources, another in a series of postproduction cost disputes, only two days after Puxsutawney Phil...more
What if you pay good money for a mineral interest and record the deed in the official public records, thereby securing your title? What if your predecessors-in-title decide among themselves they made a material mistake in a...more
BlueStone Nat. Res. II, LLC v. Nettye Engler Energy, LP is another Texas case deciding whether language creating a nonparticipating royalty interest prohibited deduction of post-production costs. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t....more
Here we continue our discussion of the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Piranha Partners et al. v. Joe B. Neuhoff et al. determining that an assignment of an overriding royalty in minerals unambiguously conveyed the override...more
Marsha Ellison v. Three Rivers Acquisition, LLC, et al. reminds us what is required for an instrument to be a conveyance and what is required for a stipulation to be effective....more