Chesapeake Exploration, LLC v. Buell

by
The parties in this case disputed who was the legal owner or holder of certain mineral rights. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division concluded that the interpretation of Ohio’s Dormant Mineral Act in the context of an oil and gas lease was determinative of the case and certified certain questions to the Supreme Court for answers. The questions were as follows: (1) whether a recorded lease of a severed subsurface mineral estate is a title transaction under the Act, and (2) whether the expiration of a recorded lease and the reversion of the rights granted under that lease is a title transaction that restarts the twenty-year forfeiture clock under the Act at the time of the reversion. The Supreme Court answered (1) a recorded lease of severed oil and gas rights is a title transaction under Ohio Rev. Code 5301.56(B)(3)(a) that constitutes a saving event to preclude the severed mineral rights from being deemed abandoned and reunited with the rights to the corresponding surface property; but (2) the unrecorded expiration of such a lease is not a title transaction that restarts the twenty-year clock under the Act. View "Chesapeake Exploration, LLC v. Buell" on Justia Law