Unitex WI LLC v. CT Land and Cattle Company LLC rejected the surface owner’s effort to force the mineral lessee to bury a pipeline below plow depth. Surface owner CT’s claim was based on a mineral lease signed by former owner Fuller in 1948. CT had acquired the surface from Senns, who acquired it
Montgomery Trustee v. ES3 Minerals and Echo Minerals is another Texas fixed or floating royalty case. Before diving into the details, perhaps it’s best to describe the pattern the courts seem to fall into to resolve these disputes. These are general rules of construction one sees time after time in these cases:
In Occidental Permian, Ltd. et al v. Citation 2002 Investment LLC the Supreme Court construed a 1987 assignment from Shell Western E& P Inc. to Citation of a large number of properties. The instrument contained these numerous provisions:
Scheming to find the most remote and inaccessible county in Texas (my vote is Yoakum but there is no paucity of candidates) in which to dish out Texas home-town justice to an out-of-state defendant? Consider Bauer and Braxton Minerals II v. Braxton Minerals III.
THE TAKEAWAY
Before paying your filing fee, be very sure the
Recent Texas royalty cases seem to feature litigants on the fixed royalty side trying, more often than not in vain, to escape the clutches of Van Dyke v. Navigator and Hysaw v. Dawkins. See those decisions for the history of how the Supreme Court got to where it is. (Regardless of which side you’re
The Duhig Rule is back, this time in Echols Minerals LLC, et al v. Green et al.
Framing the discussion, Duhig v. Peavy Moore Lumber Company and Trial v. Dragon
In Duhig the grantor in a general warranty deed warranted title and reserved half of the minerals. The deed did not mention that a
Fletcher v. Merritt resulted in several rulings on the proof required to prevail in a property dispute. Merritt filed a trespass to try title suit (actually a quiet title, which the court construed as TTT) against Fletcher for ownership of a 28.9 foot-wide strip separating their lots. In concluding that the evidence was legally and
Barkley v. Connally, a “bet-the-farm” case if there ever was one, invokes the merger clause, a basic principle of contract law. Clients and lawyers: Read this analysis so as to avoid boundless grief and disappointment for client and lawyer alike.
Jim Barkley, having undergone bankruptcy and nearing retirement, agreed to sell his farm to
The plain, ordinary, and generally accepted meaning of a word doesn’t mean “anything goes”. It depends on context, says the Supreme Court of Texas in Finley Resources Inc. v. Headington Royalty Inc., a dispute over the meaning of “predecessors”. For the underlying facts see our post on the court of appeals decision.
The release
Can a non-operating working interest in a Texas oil and gas lease be adversely possessed? The Amarillo Court of Appeals said yes in PBEX II, LLC v. Dorchester Minerals, L.P.
In 1989, Torch Oil & Gas succeeded to a working