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...more
So, you found all the heirs and you have an agreed judgment stipulating title. Time to pay royslties? Maybe. And you have signed division orders. Surely, you can pay now? Maybe. These were the questions facing the parties in...more
We begin with a document-drafting tip: When reserving an interest in minerals, before cutting and pasting from your old document that would be yellowed and dusty if it remained in its original papyrus format, lawyers and...more
You might recall this post on Broadway National Bank, Trustee v. Yates Energy Corporation. We now have Yates Energy Corporation et al v. Broadway National Bank, Trustee, the court of appeals’ ruling after remand. Recall the...more
In the Estate of Terry Banta presents yet another purported Texas land transaction doomed because of disregard for the Statute of Frauds. Terry Banta and the Herriotts entered into an oral agreement for the Herriotts to...more
In re: Estate of Robert Scott Masters, Deceased reveals the price to be paid for failing to timely admit a will to probate or as a muniment of title.
Know this about Texas probate law -
The Estates Code requires...more
What if you pay good money for a mineral interest and record the deed in the official public records, thereby securing your title? What if your predecessors-in-title decide among themselves they made a material mistake in a...more
The Texas Supreme Court in Concho Resources, Inc. v. Ellison enforced a boundary stipulation involving an unambiguous deed about which there had been no dispute. You can refer to our earlier post to understand the facts, the...more
Yesterday we discussed aspects of PPC Acquisition Co., LLC, et al. v. Delaware Basin Res., LLC, et al. Today we consider whether the retained-acreage clauses created a special limitation or a covenant and the relationship...more
In Susan Davis Van Dyke et al. v. The Navigator Group. et al., the Eastland court of appeals applied recent fixed-versus-floating NPRI principles to a double-fraction mineral interest reservation....more
In re Plains Pipeline, L.P., is a suit to adjudicate title to groundwater. Did the trial court err in allowing a party to drill seven test holes on a tank farm? (Spoiler alert: It didn’t.) This decision evaluates an order in...more
In Wheeler et al v. San Miguel Electric Cooperative, we learn – again – the difficulty in asserting a position in litigation that is contrary to the actual words in the agreement you are fighting over....more
Here we continue our discussion of the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Piranha Partners et al. v. Joe B. Neuhoff et al. determining that an assignment of an overriding royalty in minerals unambiguously conveyed the override...more
Generally, if your will leaves your beloved “all … right, title and interest in and to”, said beloved would receive the entirety of your interest, whether a surface estate, mineral estate, or both. But in ConocoPhillips, et...more
2/26/2020
/ Appeals ,
Beneficiaries ,
ConocoPhillips ,
Estate Claims ,
Inheritance ,
Jointly-Owned Property ,
Land Parcels ,
Land Titles ,
Life Estates ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Popular ,
Property Division ,
Real Party in Interest ,
Reversal ,
Surface Owner ,
Wills
Yet another entry in the Strip and Gore universe (2012’s “Beware of Strips and Gores”, and 2019’s “Strip and Gore 2: The Sequel”) comes to us from Fort Worth Court of Appeals: Richard D. Crawford v. XTO Energy, Inc....more
1/21/2020
/ Appeals ,
Energy Exploration ,
Grantors ,
Ingress/Egress ,
Land Titles ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Real Estate Market ,
Transfer of Rights ,
Well Drilling
Scribner v. Wineinger, et al. affirms that acquisition of a Texas oil and gas leasehold by limitations is not defeated if the adverse possessor’s acknowledgement of a claimant’s title comes too late....more
The 2019 Texas legislature enacted a new Property Code Section 5.152 to protect mineral and royalty owners from a certain species of fraudulent transactions perpetrated on trusting and/or naïve and/or out of state mineral...more
11/5/2019
/ Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Fraud ,
Fraudulent Conveyance ,
Future Royalties ,
Gas Royalties ,
Land Titles ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Property Owners ,
Scams ,
Transfer of Interest
Less than a year ago, we discussed the “Unanswered Questions” left in the wake of Devon Energy Prod. Co., LP v. Apache Corp. (which did answer the question, “Who is a ‘Payor’ Under the Texas Natural Resources Code?”). ...more
We told you to “Beware of Strips and Gores” back in 2012 and today we bring you Green et al v. Chesapeake et al, the sequel. Unlike cinema’s greatest follow-ups, this entry feels more like an unneeded rehash of the original....more
In this title action the title issues didn’t matter. The lesson is simple: The exclusive procedure to resolve competing claims to real property in Texas is a statutory trespass-to-try-title suit under Property Code Chapter...more
The ruling from the Supreme Court of Texas in JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., et al v. Orca Assets, G.P., L.L.C. was foreseeable. Experienced energy professionals who pass on the opportunity to examine title for themselves are...more
Let’s get right to the takeaway: Despite the humble hourly rate operators are typically willing to fork over for title examination, the job isn’t easy and you’d better put your trust in a practitioner with expertise,...more
Chauvin v. Shell Oil Company et al is the potful of legal unpleasantness that can be stirred up by landmen trying to buy easements, leases, and the like.
A number of plaintiffs – descendants of grantors of two parcels of...more
The Texas Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in three intriguing oil and gas cases. Here’s what you need to know about two of them (We’ll address the third case soon)....more
12/19/2017
/ Appeals ,
ConocoPhillips ,
Contract Interpretation ,
Contract Terms ,
Energy Sector ,
Land Titles ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Rule Against Perpetuities ,
TX Supreme Court
We recently discussed Freeman v. Harleton. The opinion shows the transaction as a bunco job. Here’s more:
Bufkin and Wayne Freeman have done business together since the 1980s. They had a co-development agreement with...more