Identifying and Quantifying Government Contract Claims
Government Contract Changes and Modifications - Webinar
Coverage Litigation Leapfrog: Why Venue Matters and How to Avoid Pre-emptive Strike Actions
Troutman Pepper COVID-19 Legal Issues Podcast Series: COVID-19 Commercial Leasing Trends (Part Two)
Will COVID-19 Qualify as a ‘Material Adverse Effect’?
Making Effective Use of the Claims/Disputes Process
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 45, Interview with Justice Ken Wise
The El Paso Court of Appeals recently published an opinion that provides what might be characterized as 26-step step system for analyzing a deed that (perhaps inadvertently) highlights a growing irony in Texas jurisprudence....more
In Franklin v. Regions Bank the Fifth Circuit concluded that a royalty clause in a mineral lease resulted in a gross proceeds royalty; the royalty owners did not bear their proportionate share of post-production costs. Read...more
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
In American Midstream (Alabama Intrastate), LLC v. Rainbow Energy Marketing Corporation, the Texas Supreme Court held that the trial court improperly inserted the words “scheduled” and “physical” into a contract. By...more
On May 22, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (“Fifth Circuit”) addressed a dispute between ANR Pipeline Company (“ANR”) and FERC. The case centered on the interpretation of ANR’s tariff and whether it...more
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
The so called “Anadarko Washout” involves a washout of oil and gas leases on undivided working interests owned by non-operating mineral cotenants. This particular species of lease washouts is based on two recent cases from...more
Let’s assume you own 105 acres in Greene County, Pennsylvania. In 2020, you signed an oil and gas lease with ABC Exploration. During the negotiations, you agreed that only those post-production costs which actually...more
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
A landowner’s failure to provide consent for surface use related to oil and gas operations does not necessarily preclude the lessee from conducting activities if the lease agreements allow surface use....more
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
In Myers-Woodward, LLC v. Underground Services Markham, LLC et al, (discussed previously) the parties disagreed on how to calculate Myers’ royalty on salt produced by Underground....more
In Myers-Woodward, LLC v. Underground Services Markham, LLC, No. 22-0878, 2025 WL 4356581 (Tex. May 16, 2025), the Texas Supreme Court resolved two significant issues affecting mineral owners and surface owners: (1) who owns...more
On Friday, May 9th, the Supreme Court of Texas addressed important issues regarding the enforcement of written contractual representations in its per curiam opinion styled Roxo Energy Co., LLC et al. v. Baxsto, LLC, ---...more
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
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
Under Van Dyke, deeds with double-fraction royalty reservations referencing “1/8” are presumed to reserve a floating royalty interest unless clearly contradicted. Defenses like waiver, ratification, and limitations cannot...more
A lessee who halts production for less than 40 days and resumes without drilling or reworking does not terminate the lease. The continuous development clause keeps the lease active, and the cessation clause allows resumed...more
In this recent case, the Texas Supreme Court resolved whether ratification of a lease or signing of a stipulation agreement could transform a fixed non-participating royalty interest (NPRI) into a floating NPRI....more
Sewak v. Sutherland Energy Co. Ltd. is of interest for how the court defined terms commonly used in consulting contracts in the oil and gas industry, and how difficult it is to foresee all contingencies when negotiating a...more
In Valence Operating Co. v. Davidson1, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana addressed whether the provision, “all Oil, Gas and other Minerals have been excepted and reserved by former...more
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
I. Background In the case of Kirkbride v. Antero Res. Corp., the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is faced with a novel argument on the interpretation of a condition precedent within an oil and gas lease. The case comes to the...more
Over the course of a century of oil and gas development in the U.S., a robust body of law developed, covering virtually every aspect of E&P and interpreting every provision in oil and gas leases, joint operating agreements...more
In Smart v. 3039 RNC Holdings LLC, the court reminds us that it will harmonize all parts of a contract, even one that “is not a model of clarity”, to reach the correct result. ...more