Recent Cases

Published on: February 26, 2018

Liquidated Damages and Penalties

Lawyers for royalty owners have filed multiple suits against Chesapeake Energy in Dimmit County seeking damages for breach of Chesapeake’s leases. These cases were consolidated for discovery and case-management purposes into a single matter, In re: Chesapeake Eagle Ford Royalty Litigation, Cause No. 2016CI22098, in the 224th District Court in San Antonio.

In addition to claims for underpayment of royalties, the plaintiffs in the Dimmit County cases allege that Chesapeake has breached clauses in the leases requiring the lessee to protect the lease against drainage from adjacent wells – sometimes called an express offset clause. Chesapeake has filed a motion for summary judgment arguing that these clauses are unenforceable because they impose a “penalty.”

One of the implied covenants in all oil and gas leases is the covenant to protect the lease against drainage from wells on adjacent tracts. The implied covenant requires the lessee to drill an “offset well” to the draining well if a reasonable and prudent operator would do so. Damages for breach of the implied covenant are the value of the royalty lost to the lessor, based on the amount of drainage that would have been prevented by the drilling of the offset well. Liability and damages for breach of the implied covenant are difficult to prove, so lessors have come up with an alternative – the express offset clause.

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Published on: February 15, 2018

Retained Acreage Clauses

By John McFarland

I recently ran across an excellent article explaining the relationship between retained acreage clauses in oil and gas leases and density and proration rules promulgated by the Texas Railroad Commission: “Fun New Ways for Density and Proration Rules to Bust Your Lease: Retained Acreage Clauses and ‘Governmental Authority’ Language in the Wake of Three Recent Texas Cases,” by Brandon Durrett, of Dykema Cox Smith. You can view it here: 140_Durrett – Fun New Ways Brandon summarizes the history of case law construing lease language that adopts RRC spacing rules as the basis for limiting pooled units and designation of acreage that can be held under an oil and gas lease.

At the time of Brandon’s article the Texas Supreme Court had denied petitions in two cases dealing with retained acreage clauses, Endeavor Energy Resources v. Discovery Operating and XOG Operating v. Chesapeake. Since then, the Supreme Court changed its mind and agreed to hear the cases and they were recently argued.

I have previously written that it is a mistake to adopt RRC field rules as the basis for retained acreage clauses. These two recent cases are Exhibit A for that argument.

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Published on: January 30, 2018

Hooks v. Samson – The Last Chapter

By John McFarland

The Texas Supreme Court yesterday denied Samson Exploration’s petition for review, ending a long-fought fraud case against Samson that began in 2007. The case was before the Court for the second time; in its first opinion in 2015 the Supreme Court reversed a court of appeals’ judgment throwing out the Hooks’ $21 million judgment against Samson and remanded to the court of appeals for further proceedings. In 2016 the court of appeals affirmed all but $2.6 million of the judgment, leaving in place a judgment for $17.5 million plus interest.

The Hooks claimed damages resulting from Samson’s fraudulent misrepresentation of the location of a well it drilled adjacent to the Hooks’ property. The Houston Court of Appeals’ first opinion in the case threw out the judgment because the Hooks’ claim was barred by limitations. But one Justice on the court made clear that he was joining the majority only because he was bound to do so by the Supreme Court’s opinion in BP v. Marshall:

In that case, the Texas Supreme Court makes clear that no lies on the part of a lessee, however self-serving and egregious, are sufficient to toll limitations, as long as it is technically possible for the lessor to have discovered the lie by resort to the Railroad Commission records. This burden the Court imposes upon lessors is severe. It is now a lessor’s duty to presume that any statement made by its lessee is false and to ransack the esoteric and oft-changing records at the Railroad Commission to discover the truth or falsity of its lessee’s statements. If, as is often the case, these records are technical in nature and require expert review to ferret out the truth, it is the lessor’s job to hire experts out of its own pocket to perform such a review. If a lessor fails to take these steps, then it will have failed in exercising reasonable diligence to protect its mineral interests and, if the lessee’s fraud is successful for longer than the limitations period, the lessor’s claims will be barred by limitations.

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Published on: December 11, 2017

Three Recent Arguments in Texas Supreme Court: Offset Clauses, the Rule Against Perpetuities, and the Duhig Rule

By John McFarland

Last Tuesday the Texas Supreme Court heard arguments in three cases on oil-and-gas-related topics.

Murphy Oil v. Adams, No. 16-0505:

Our firm represents the Herbsts in this case. Murphy owns a lease on their lands in Atascosa County, shown in blue below. While the Herbst Lease was in its primary term, Comstock drilled the Lucas A Well on the adjacent tract, shown in green.

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Published on: November 28, 2017

Dragon v. Trial: the Duhig Rule Reigns

By John McFarland

Dragon v. Trial, from the San Antonio Court of Appeals, No. 04-16-00758-CV, decided November 8, is a case that may be of interest only to title attorneys and landmen and those of us who delight in the minutiae of land titles. It is also, like many title disputes, the story of a dispute over land whose minerals have become fantastically valuable. The case involves 237 acres in Karnes County, in the heart of the Eagle Ford play.

In 1932, the 237 acres was conveyed in equal shares to eight siblings. One of the siblings died, and the property was thereafter owned by the remaining seven. One of the siblings was Leo Trial. In 1983, Leo conveyed one-half of his 1/7th share to his wife Anna Ruth.

In December 1992, Jerome and Patricia Dragon purchased the property from Leo Trial and his siblings. They financed a part of the purchase with a 15-year note. Also, the grantors reserved the mineral estate in the 237 acres for a term of 15 years, after which title to the minerals would go to the Dragons. But Anna Ruth Trial did not sign the deed – an oversight that was not discovered until years later. Continue reading →

Published on: November 6, 2017

Cases to Watch in Texas Supreme Court

By John McFarland

Oil and gas cases I’m following that are now pending before the Texas Supreme Court:

16-0107, Hill v. Shamoun & Norman

Fight over attorneys’ fees related to litigation of trust from H.L. Hunt Estate. Case has been argued. I wrote about the case in a prior post.

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Published on: October 9, 2017

Courts Reject Trump Administration Efforts to Delay Implementation of Obama Methane Emission Rules

By John McFarland

The DC Court of Appeals and the US District Court for the Northern District of California have struck down orders of the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management postponing compliance dates for the Obama administration’s rules requiring the oil and gas industry to monitor and reduce methane emissions. Both courts held that the agency’s orders were “arbitrary and capricious” and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Clean Air Council, et al. v. E. Scott Pruitt, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency and Environmental Protection Agency, No. 17-1145, opinion July 3, 2017; State of California, et al. v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, et al., Case Nos. 17-cv-03804-EDL, 17-cv-388-EDL, opinion Oct. 4, 2017.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas contributing to human-caused global warming. The EPA’s rules, aimed at reducing emissions of methane from oil and gas facilities, were adopted in May 2016. They impose “new source performance standards” for finding and fixing leaks of methane in oil and gas production facilities. Those rules require operators to implement a leak monitoring plan using optical gas imaging to find and fix leaks from valves, connectors, pressure-relief devices, flanges, compressors and thief hatches on storage tanks. The BLM issued similar rules in November 2016 to reduce waste of natural gas from venting, flaring and leaks during oil and gas production activities on Federal and Indian lands.

President Trump appointed Scott Pruitt as Administrator of EPA. Pruitt, as Attorney General of Oklahoma, sued the EPA at fourteen times on behalf of his state, attacking the EPA’s authority to regulate various industries. Pruitt rejects the scientific consensus that human activities contribute to climate change. Continue reading →

Published on: October 3, 2017

Texas Supreme Court Denies Motion for Rehearing in BP America Production Co. v. Red Deer Resources, LLC

By John McFarland

On September 22, the Texas Supreme Court refused to reconsider its opinion in BP America v. Red Deer Resources, No. 15.0569 – after some 16 amicus briefs and letters were filed urging the court to grant Red Deer’s motion for rehearing.

The Court addressed the construction of a shut-in royalty clause in an oil and gas lease:

Where gas from any well or wells capable of producing gas … is not sold or used during or after the primary term and this lease is not otherwise maintained in effect, lessee may pay or tender as shut-in royalty …, payable annually on or before the end of each twelve month period during which such gas is not sold or used and this lease is not otherwise maintained in force, and if such shut-in royalty is so paid or tendered and while lessee’s right to pay or tender same is accruing, it shall be considered that gas is being produced in paying quantities, and this lease shall remain in force during each twelve-month period for which shut-in royalty is so paid or tendered ….

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Published on: September 14, 2017

Supreme Court Considers Two Cases on Retained Acreage Clauses

By John McFarland

The Texas Supreme Court has reconsidered its decision not to hear two appeals involving retained acreage clauses: XOG Operating, LLC v. Chesapeake Exploration Limited Partnership, No. 15-0935, and Endeavor Energy Resources, L.P. v. Discovery Operating, Inc., No. 16-0155. The Court initially refused to consider the cases, after ordering briefs on the merits in both, but on September 1 the Court reversed itself. It reinstated XOG’s petition for review in XOG v. Chesapeake, and it granted the petition for review and set Endeavor v. Discovery for oral argument on January 9, 2018.

In XOG v. Chesapeake, the retained acreage clause is included not in an oil and gas lease, but in an assignment of lease from XOG. The assignment provided that, once the continuous development period in the assignment expires:

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Published on: September 6, 2017

New Challenge to Pipeline Eminent Domain Powers

By John McFarland

Landowners in Texas challenged the right of pipelines to condemn easements for intrastate lines in Texas in Texas Rice Land Partners, Ltd. v. Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas, LLC, decided in 2011. The Texas Supreme Court held that a pipeline seeking to exercise the power of eminent domain must prove that the pipeline will be put to a “public use.” The case caused a stir among pipeline companies and their counsel, and resulted in new regulations at the Texas Railroad Commission, which approves intrastate pipeline projects, and efforts to bolster pipeline eminent domain authority by legislation.

A group of landowners has now filed suit challenging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s grant of eminent domain authority for interstate pipeline projects. In Bold Alliance et al. v. FERC et al., No. 1:17-cv-01822 (Bold Alliance v. FERC), in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs allege that FERC does not require pipeline companies to demonstrate that their projects serve a “public use.” The plaintiffs seek to enjoin FERC from issuing certificates of need to Mountain Valley Pipeline for its proposed 301-mile 42-inch gas line in West Virginia and Virginia, and to Atlantic Coast Pipeline for its 564-mile 42-inch line in West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.

After all of the concern created by the Texas Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Denbury, the Court this year finally held that Denbury did in fact have the power to condemn Texas Rice Land Partners’ property. The Court held that “the evidence adduced by Denbury Green on remand established as a matter of law that there was a reasonable probability that, at some point after construction, the Green Line would serve the public by transporting CO2 for one or more customers who will either retain ownership of their gas or sell it to parties other than the carrier.” This is not a high hurdle to overcome. It will be interesting to see what test the DC Court applies to determine whether the projects there challenged will serve a public use.