On March 12 the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in BlueStone Natural Resources II, LLC v. Walker Murray Randle, No. 19-0459, affirming most of the judgment of the court below in favor of the royalty owners. The Court’s opinion contains a summary and discussion of its prior cases on…
A colleague recently pointed out to me that I had miss-read the Texas Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Endeavor Energy Resources v. Energen Resources Corporation. In my previous post on the case I said that the Court had concluded that the retained acreage clause being construed was ambiguous and had…
Governmental entities in Texas like school districts, municipalities, hospital districts, and counties rely heavily on property taxes to finance their operations. Mineral interests are real property interests, and when a producing well is drilled the owners of rights to production from the well, both the working interest and the royalty…
The El Paso Court of Appeals tangled with the accommodation doctrine in Lyle v. Midway Solar, LLC, No. 08-19-00216-CV, and the mineral owner lost. The Lyles own a 27.5% mineral interest in 315 acres in Pecos County. Gary Drgac owns the surface. Drgac leased the 315 acres to Midway Solar…
Texas courts are very reluctant to hold that oil and gas lease provisions are ambiguous. The same holds true for deeds and wills. These instruments affect title to land, and if an instrument is ambiguous it inserts uncertainty into land titles and results in litigation over the parties’ intent using…
Netty Engler Energy, LP has asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the decision of the Fort Worth Court of Appeals in Netty Engler Energy, LP v. Bluestone Natural Resources II, LLC, 2020 WL 3865269 (July 9, 2020). Engler owns a royalty interest in a section of land in Tarrant…
On October 28 Judge David Jones, US Bankruptcy Court for Southern District in Houston, issued a memorandum opinion in Chesapeake Energy’s bankruptcy (Case No. 20-33233), granting Chesapeake’s motion to reject its contract to sell gas to ETC Texas Pipeline. The Bankruptcy Code allows a debtor in bankruptcy to “reject” an…
The Texas Supreme Court will hear arguments in December in Concho Resources v. Ellison, No. 19-0233, a fight over ownership of the minerals in 154 acres in Irion County. (The population of Irion county was 1,599 in 2010. Its county seat is Mertzon. The county was once the hideout of…
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, in Amarillo, recently wrote an opinion in Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research v. BP America Production Company, 447 F.Supp.3d 522 (March 3, 2020) dealing with the enforceability of a lease provision requiring the lessee to obtain the lessor’s consent to assign an oil…