News & Analysis as of

Oil & Gas Trespass

Gray Reed

Update on Pennsylvania Subsurface Trespass

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Briggs v. Southwestern Energy Production Company, LLC is good news for Pennsylvania mineral owners bringing claims for subsurface trespass by fracking. In 2018 in “Briggs 1”, the Briggs family sued SWN for subsurface...more

Gray Reed

Mineral Lessee’s H2S Damage Claim Rejected

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Landowner and mineral owner (that includes you, lessee): Under ETC Texas Pipeline, Ltd. v. Ageron Energy, LLC, your right to sue for damages for tort or trespass could pass into history before you even know you have a claim....more

Gray Reed

Texas Court Considers Trespass by Produced Water Injection – Part 2

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See yesterday’s post on Iskandia Operating, LLC v. SWEPI, LP - SWEPI’s motion for summary judgment alleged that Iskandia presented no evidence of one or more elements of its trespass claim, noting that the Supreme Court of...more

Gray Reed

Texas Court Addresses Trespass by Produced Water Injection – Part 1

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Iskandia Operating Inc. v. SWEPI, LP d/b/a Shell Western E & P reversed summary judgment for the defendant in a subsurface trespass claim involving injection of large amounts of produced water....more

Gray Reed

Court Addresses Questions in Trespass to Try Title/Adverse Possession Suit

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Fletcher v. Merritt resulted in several rulings on the proof required to prevail in a property dispute. Merritt filed a trespass to try title suit (actually a quiet title, which the court construed as TTT) against Fletcher...more

Gray Reed

Lessee Can’t Satisfy Texas Supreme Court’s Force Majeure Requirements

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Imagine these facts in a force majeure dispute (as presented in Point Energy Partners Permian LLC et al. v. MRC Permian Company). Lessee (MRC) invokes the force majeure provision of an oil and gas lease, asserting that...more

Gray Reed

Ohio Federal Court Considers Subsurface Trespass

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Golden Eagle Resources II LLC v. Rice Drilling D LLC. presents a small step in the development of subsurface trespass law in Ohio. The federal court considered a motion to dismiss, in which it evaluated the sufficiency of the...more

Houston Harbaugh, P.C.

Ohio Federal Court Allows Subsurface Trespass Suit To Move Forward

Houston Harbaugh, P.C. on

This is a familiar yet troubling question. Imagine you own 135 acres in Washington County. You have received offers from several oil and gas drillers but have not yet signed a lease. Your neighbor, however, did sign a lease...more

Roetzel & Andress

Court of Appeals Issues Significant Mineral Trespass Opinion Upholding Multi-Million-Dollar Future Damages Award

Roetzel & Andress on

On January 18, 2023, in TERA, LLC v. Rice Drilling D, LLC, et al., --- N.E.3d ----, 2023-Ohio-273, the Seventh District Court of Appeals issued a key decision concerning mineral trespass law in Ohio. The court of appeals...more

Gray Reed

A Texas Fight Over Competing Leases

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Let’s proceed directly to the takeaways from Fort Apache Energy, Inc. v. Short OG III, Ltd., et al, a Southern District of Texas bankruptcy court opinion. (Gray Reed partners Jim Ormiston and David Leonard represented Short...more

Adams and Reese LLP

The Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies Defense Takes Another Hit

Adams and Reese LLP on

The Supreme Court of Mississippi recently held in Tiger Production Company, LLC v. Pace, 2021-IA-00315-SCT, 2022 WL 11555295 (October 20, 2022) that surface owners are not necessarily required to exhaust administrative...more

Gray Reed

Louisiana Legacy Lawsuit Survives Motion to Dismiss

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Withrow v. Chevron is another Louisiana legacy lawsuit, this one claiming that defendants Chevron and Vernon E. Faulconer, Inc., and their predecessors, improperly disposed of toxic and hazardous oilfield wastes in unlined...more

Gray Reed

Court Finds Declaratory Judgment Action, Not Trespass to Try Title

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SM Energy Co. v. Union Pac. R.R. Co. considers a question frequently asked in Texas suits affecting title: When is a suit a trespass to try title action and not a declaratory judgment action?...more

Gray Reed

Texas Supreme Court Reverses Subsurface Trespass Judgment

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Regency Field Services LLC v. Swift Energy Operating LLC, draws one’s attention to the difficult analyses that should be made before bringing a subsurface trespass claim....more

Gray Reed

Ambiguity Foils Right of Way Agreement

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The central issue in the Texas case of Cook v. Cimarex Energy Co.: Did Cook grant Cimarex a right of way across Cook’s land to the location of two Cimarex wells. No he didn’t. Reversing the trial court, the court of appeals...more

Gray Reed

Pennsylvania Rule of Capture Still Bars Subsurface Trespass Claim

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After a trial court order, two appellate opinions, a dissent, and another appellate opinion, the tension between a well operator and an adjacent mineral owner over whether hydraulic fracturing can constitute a subsurface...more

Gray Reed

Louisiana Oil Pipeline Expropriation System is Constitutional

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The battle lines between pipeline companies and landowners are still being drawn. In Bayou Bridge Pipeline v. 38.00 acres nobody had a gun, nobody got taken away, and one side was right and one side was wrong....more

Best Best & Krieger LLP

“You Can’t Stand in the Way of Progress”

California Appellate Court Says Public Utility Must Pay to Relocate Pipelines to Make Way for Public Transportation Project - In a landmark victory for transportation agencies, the California Court of Appeal brought...more

Jones Day

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Endorses Rule of Capture for Hydraulic Fracturing - Opinion in Briggs v. Southwestern Energy Co. left...

Jones Day on

The oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania attained a narrow victory after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania endorsed the application of the rule of capture, the century-old legal principle shielding drillers from trespassing...more

Bricker Graydon LLP

Hydraulic fracturing and subsurface trespass in Pennsylvania: Briggs v. Southwestern Energy Production Co.

Bricker Graydon LLP on

In a case of first impression that drew interest across Appalachia, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined on January 22, 2020, that the rule of capture applies when natural gas is extracted through hydraulic fracturing...more

Gray Reed

Pennsylvania Says No Trespass by Fracking – the Dissent

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The concurrence and dissent in Briggs et al v. Southwestern Energy Production Company appears to be of little help to property owners complaining of trespass by fracking where there is no invasion of frack fluids on to the...more

Gray Reed

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Says No Trespass by Fracking

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Herein, highlights from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Briggs, et al. v. Southwestern Energy Production Company. The rule of capture applies to oil and gas produced from wells completed using hydraulic fracturing and...more

Gray Reed

Limitations Title Not Precluded by Late Acknowledgment

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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

Womble Bond Dickinson

Whose Milkshake is Whose?: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Considers Whether the Rule of Capture Applies to Hydraulic Fracturing

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The Rule of Capture has been a foundational concept of oil and gas prospecting for 150 years. The Rule of Capture exists to provide an affirmative defense to drillers when they tap into oil and gas pockets that cross property...more

Foley Hoag LLP - Global Business and Human...

Trump Administration's Proposed Prosecution of Pipeline Opponents: Weighing Human Rights Obligations and Congressional Support

The Trump Administration is using the reauthorization of a pipeline safety statute as an opening to insert new provisions that would give U.S. authorities broader latitude to thwart and criminalize the activities of...more

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