The words of an instrument conveying real property in Texas mean something, of course. But so does the placement of those words … which leads to the result in SRO Land & Minerals, LP v. BNSF Railway Co. A 1901 deed to The Pecos River Rail Road Company conveyed fee simple title
“Better the end of a thing than the beginning thereof … .” Ecclesiastes 7:8. The writer was probably prophesying about Texas’ never-ending double-fraction mineral disputes.
Next up: Ovintive USA, Inc. et al v. High Noon Resources, LLC et al in which the Eastland Court of Appeals found that a 1958 mineral deed reserved a fixed
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
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
Way back in 2023 it was predicted that the Supreme Court of Texas’ decision in Van Dyke v. Navigator would spawn years of litigation. How right the predictions were!
“Gambit”: A calculated move, a stratagem. An example might be to buy a mineral interest with a long and complicated title history from the incarcerated son of a deceased parent and to bet on a court favoring your characterization of the property. In Griffin Energy Law, PLLC v. Billingsley et al. the gambit failed.
The
Moore et al v. 1789 Minerals Fund I, LP, et al is another Texas decision addressing the effect of a Sheriff’s Deed after a tax foreclosure. Was the deed void for want of a sufficient property description? No, but the trial court will have to construe the document.
The facts
In the 1930s the
Several weeks ago the Supreme Court of Texas addressed the double-fraction mineral conveyance, reinforcing the “Van Dyke presumption” but not addressing how the presumption could be rebutted or the presumed-grant doctrine. Last week’s Clifton v. Johnson addresses both.
The deed and the suit
The typewritten title to a “Mineral Deed” was crossed out and “Royalty Deed”