On March 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its decision in Fonzi v. Brown and Fonzi v. Miller, Slip Opinion No. 2022-Ohio-901, discussing the level of due diligence required of a surface owner to provide notice to a...more
On March 24, 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court reviewed the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act and further clarified the steps a surface owners must take to identify and locate mineral holders before serving notice of abandonment. ...more
On February 15, 2022, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its decision in Peppertree Farms, L.L.C., et al. v. Thonen, et al., providing further clarity on the common law distinction between a “reservation” of a property interest...more
On February 15, 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a significant decision in Peppertree Farms, L.L.C. v. Thonen establishing that, unless expressly stated otherwise, an oil and gas royalty interest retained in a deed...more
Last year in West v. Bode, the Ohio Supreme Court determined that mineral estates are subject to the statutory double barrel of both the Marketable Title Act (MTA) and the Dormant Mineral Act (DMA), providing surface owners...more
On March 16, 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its opinion in Erickson et al. v. Morrison et al., Slip Opinion No. 2021-Ohio-746, clarifying the decision in Blackstone v. Moore, 2018-Ohio-4959, and holding that a...more
On March 16, 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued another important opinion in the ongoing tug of war between surface landowners and severed mineral owners over the ownership of valuable mineral rights in Ohio. In Erickson...more
On December 17, the Supreme Court of Ohio held in Gerrity v. Chervenak that the circumstances of each respective case will control the efforts a surface owner must take before resorting to notice by publication under the...more
On December 17, 2020, in yet another significant case involving severed mineral interests, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its opinion in Gerrity v. Chervenak, 2020-Ohio-6705. In a unanimous decision to affirm, the Court...more
Ohio oil and gas stakeholders received another landmark decision from the Ohio Supreme Court in West v. Bode, 2020 — N.E.3d — 2020 WL 7049820 2020-Ohio-5473. Specifically, the Court held that both the Marketable Title Act...more
On December 2, 2020, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its opinion in West v. Bode, 2020-Ohio-5473, and determined that either the Marketable Title Act (“MTA”) or the Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”) may be used to reunite a...more
Merit briefs have been filed in a landmark oil and gas case currently pending before Supreme Court of Ohio: West v. Bode, Case No. 2019-1494. And the stakes could not be higher for both surface and mineral owners, because the...more
On December 19, 2018, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed Ohio Senate Bill No. 263, which amended O.R.C. 4735.01 to exempt oil and gas land professionals (landmen) from the real-estate licensing requirement made necessary by the...more
On September 25, 2018, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued its opinion which held that oil and gas land professionals must be licensed as real estate brokers in Ohio if they are engaged in obtaining oil and gas leases for other...more
On September 25, 2018, the Ohio Supreme Court issued its decision in Thomas Dundics v. Eric Petroleum, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-3826, holding that the plain language of Ohio Revised Code 4735.01 does not exclude oil and gas...more
The Supreme Court of Ohio on January 30, 2018 issued an opinion in State ex rel. Kerns v. Simmers, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-256, denying a writ of mandamus seeking to compel the Chief of the Ohio Department of Natural...more
On January 3, 2018, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued an opinion in Alford v. Collins-McGregor Operating Co., Slip Opinion No. 2018–Ohio–8, affirming the dismissal of the landowners’ complaint for failure to state a claim upon...more
The Supreme Court of Ohio recently brought clarity to issues plaguing the holders of both mineral and surface rights for years by addressing two questions: When does the owner of dormant mineral rights abandon those rights?...more