Head-scratchers: (1) Is a mineral reservation a fraction of royalty, or a fractional royalty? (2) Is there a difference? (3) Does it matter?
Answers: (1) It depends on how you phrase it. (2) Yes. (3) Yes, if you care about being paid on production, or you are the scrivener of deeds and assignments and want
The ghosts of Clinton Manges and people like him continue to haunt executive right owners in Texas. In the 1980’s, Mr. Manges’ abuse of his non-participating royalty owner inspired the Texas Supreme Court to re-affirm the obligations of an executive right owner to the NPRI owner: “utmost fair dealing” and a fiduciary duty.
In Friddle
“If you want a successful gathering of long-lost kinfolks, just manage to find oil on the old homestead. They will come out from under logs, down trees, from out of the blue and down every road and byway, but they’ll get there — even some nobody ever suspected were kinfolks.”
Judge R. T.Brown, who presided
Occasionally, we venture beyond the comfortable red-state confines of Texas to visit swing states and discuss mineral activity other than oil and gas drilling; and we go back in time. This is one of those journeys, as we go to Ohio, where the court relied on a decision from the time when Chester A. Arthur
By Travis Booher – Aggie
For the sake of the game plan, let’s run with Charlie’s lame football analogies, and look at a few more objectives to keep in mind when preparing a runsheet. This time, attention will be on the good guys (the boys in maroon), rather than the gang in purple and gold.
Written by Travis Booher
Disclaimer: Travis should not be blamed for the lame football analogies in this post.
All too often landmen see the same old comments and the same old requirements in title opinions. I was recently asked for ways to decrease the number of comments and requirements and hence, the amount of curative
My, how times change! In a suit that brings the chaos, frenzy, and all-embracing madness of 2008 Haynesville leasing activity into focus, Hall Ponderosa LLC vs. Petrohawk Properties L.P. held that reformation of an oil and
I promise this will be the last post in a while on covenants running with the land. I think we all get it by now (This topic was discussed in my August 1 post).
The Result
A Joint Operating Agreement referenced in documents that is in a party’s chain of title and is, by its
Question: Can a landowner enforce a right of first refusal bargained for by his predecessor? Answer: It depends. (Note to self: Why do you always say that in your posts? Because, as Texas Rangers’ manager Ron Washington might say, “That’s the way the law go”.) The answer in MPH Production Co. v. Smith et
It ‘s tough to find an interesting picture of a title dispute, so here’s a musical interlude. You never can tell how the court will construe a complicated property deed.
Can the seller of land retain half of the minerals he owns in the property if he doesn’t actually reserve anything? Yes, he can, says