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Breach of Contract › Contract Interpretation › Texas

McGinnis Lochridge

Plain Language Meets Common Sense: Hidden Traps in Oil Patch Contract Interpretation

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What happens when a court reads your contract literally for one issue but decides what 'makes sense' for another? A geophysicist just found out. In early April 2025, the Amarillo Court of Appeals reversed in part and...more

Gray Reed

Texas Supreme Court Decides Who Must Produce to Maintain an Oil and Gas Lease

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In Cromwell v. Anadarko E & P Onshore LLC the Supreme Court of Texas did what it so often does: In order to provide “legal certainty and predictability”, the Court considered the plain language of a contract in order to...more

McGinnis Lochridge

Texas Supreme Court Clarifies Limits of Shut-In Payment Notations in Lease Disputes

McGinnis Lochridge on

In this case (Scout Energy Mgmt., LLC v. Taylor Properties, No. 23-1014, 2024 WL 5249490 [Tex. Dec. 31, 2024]), the Texas Supreme Court held that vague notations on shut-in royalty check receipts cannot modify an unambiguous...more

Gray Reed

Operator Excused from Texas Relinquishment Act Claims

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In Williams O & G Resources, LLC v. Diamondback Energy, Inc., a federal magistrate judge concluded that the Texas Relinquishment Act does not apply to public-school lands patented after 1931. The report and recommendation was...more

McGinnis Lochridge

All Depths or Just One Formation? Court Clarifies Royalty Conveyance in Rock River v. Pioneer

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This recent case (Rock River Minerals, LP v. Pioneer Nat. Res. USA Inc., No. 08-23-00216-CV, 2024 WL 4528917 [Tex. App.—El Paso Oct. 18, 2024, no pet. h.]) explored whether an assignment of an overriding royalty interest,...more

Gray Reed

Uri Force Majeure Cases Still Percolating

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Thought you’d heard the last of force majuere cases arising from Winter Storm Uri? Think again. In Marathon Oil Company v. Koch Services LLC. the question was how to measure damages suffered by Koch for Marathon’s...more

Husch Blackwell LLP

Fifth Circuit: "Manifest Disregard of the Law" Cannot Be Grafted to FAA as a Basis for Vacatur of Arbitration Award

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In affirming a district court’s denial of a petition to vacate an arbitration award, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently rejected the argument “that manifest disregard of the law remains viable as an...more

Zelle LLP

Any is Not All and The Future is Not Now: The Contours of the Cosmetic Damage Exclusion Taking Shape

Zelle LLP on

In Iyengar v. Liberty Insurance Corporation, No. SA-21-CV-1091-FB, 2024 WL 5505300 (W.D. Tex. Dec. 13, 2024), District Judge Biery denied Plaintiffs’ Motion for Clarification regarding Magistrate Judge Bemporad’s...more

McGinnis Lochridge

Tackling Free-Use and At-The-Well Royalties

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This lease royalty case involved a dispute over whether the lessee was permitted to deduct volumes of gas used off the premises to power post-production activities on other gas produced from the same well. Carl v. Hilcorp...more

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