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Co-author Chance Decker

Recall the Battle of the Bastards: The heroic Lady Sansa and the duplicitous Lord Baelish gallop over the hill to save the foolish Jon Snow from the heinous Ramsey Bolton. In similar fashion, but without the malnourished canines, the Texas Supreme Court in Conoco Phillips Company v. Koopmann saved the Koopmanns and you, the document drafters and title examiners, from brutal application of the Rule Against Perpetuities.
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Noble Energy Inc. v. ConocoPhillips Company, a 6-to-3 Texas Supreme Court decision, is a reminder of two things:

  • How parties to a property transaction describe what’s being acquired and what’s being left behind can have grave consequences. The purchaser can acquire specific obligations associated with purchased assets, excluding all others not mentioned. Or, he can acquire all obligations, disclaiming none, including those not even mentioned and those he doesn’t even know about. Here, the difference cost Noble $63 million.
  •  When given a choice, the Texas Supreme Court is likely to resolve a dispute by relying on the words in a contract rather than notions of equity.

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