It’s often helpful when courts are asked to construe joint operating agreements. Not always, though. Courts sometimes don’t understand or fail to take into account industry custom and practice and the underlying purposes behind the JOA, especially the Model Form. Evans Resources LP v. Petroplex Energy Inc. appears, at first blush, not to be
Co-Author: Gunner West
In Equinor Energy LP v. Lindale Pipeline, LLC the Supreme Court reversed a jury award of $26 million that had been affirmed by a court of appeals, based on the meaning of one humble preposition. A supplier’s exclusive right to deliver fracking water “on the Pipeline” failed because water from another supplier
Co-Author Gunner West
In B.H.C.H. Mineral, Ltd. v. Needmore Minerals, LLP, the San Antonio Court of appeals held that a reservation of “1/32 of all oil, gas and other minerals” coupled with attribute-stripping language and a minimum royalty requirement created a non-executive mineral interest with a floating royalty. The court also declined to apply
Our Cornucopia post was a reminder that “subject to” is a phrase that punches well above its weight. In Brown et al v. Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P., those same two words undid a $2.3 million summary judgment and returned the case to the trial court for a do-over.
Randy
So says the Supreme Court of Texas in Braxton Minerals III, LLC v. Bauer. For many years there was doubt and confusion over whether a Texas court could assert its jurisdiction in a suit over mineral rights located in another state. In Braxton the Court answered with an emphatic yes, reversing
… at least according to the El Paso Court of Appeals. In Craddick v. Cimarex Energy Co., that court affirmed a take-nothing judgment against owners of overriding royalty interests in an oil and gas lease that were washed out when the lessee surrendered the lease to the mineral owner. The court
In Boerschig v. Rio Grande Electrical Cooperative, Inc. the Supreme Court of Texas, in a four-justice opinion, a concurrence and four dissents, determined that an electric cooperative holds an easement by estoppel for a distribution line but, disregarding a jury finding, also found as a matter of law that a significant
We at Energy and the Law solemnly swear and affirm that we will no longer report on the Van Dyke Presumption just as soon as litigants – win, lose or remand – exhaust their efforts to confirm, refute, distinguish or overcome it. Until then …
By a 1956 deed the Hoffmans conveyed
In WMH Farms v. Apache Corporation the Third Circuit Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment in favor of plaintiff/landowner WMH against lessee JP Oil and dismissed JP’s third-party demand against Walter Oil and Gas.
Then the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the court of appeal, reinstated the summary judgment, and remanded. We will report on the
Another dispute is resolved according to the provisions in a Master Service Agreement. Have you reviewed yours lately?
Jones was employed by Murphrey Oil Company. He died while working on a well operated by Texas Pacific Investment Company on a location in Winn Parish, Louisiana. Murphrey and TPIC had a MSA by which Murphrey was