Justia Energy, Oil & Gas Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs-Appellants, a certified class of Osage tribal members who owned headrights, appealed the district court’s accounting order. Plaintiffs alleged that the government was improperly distributing royalties to non-Osage tribal members, which diluted the royalties for the Osage tribal members, the rightful headright owners. The complaint attributed this misdistribution to the government’s mismanagement of the trust assets and the government’s failure to perform an accounting. Thus, Plaintiffs sought to compel the government to perform an accounting and to prospectively restrict royalty payments to Osage tribal members and their heirs. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ accounting claim because it found that the applicable statute only required the government to account for deposits, not withdrawals, and that such an accounting would not support Plaintiffs’ misdistribution claim. After review, the Tenth Circuit could not say the district court abused its discretion. "The accounting the district court fashioned will certainly inform Plaintiffs of the trust receipts and disbursements and to whom those disbursements were made." View "Fletcher v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff purchased property on which oil and gas operations had been conducted. Plaintiff filed suit against Hess, asserting claims for damages stemming from contamination caused by the oil- and gas-related activities on the tract. The oil and gas leases expired in 1973 and plaintiff purchased the property in 2007, when all wells had been plugged and abandoned. The district court granted Hess's motion for summary judgment, concluding that the subsequent purchaser rule barred plaintiff's claims. The court explained that a clear consensus has emerged among all Louisiana appellate courts that have considered the issue, and they have held that the subsequent purchaser rule does apply to cases, like this one, involving expired mineral leases. Because this case presented no occasion to depart from precedent, the court deferred to these precedents, and held that the subsequent purchaser doctrine barred plaintiff's claims. The court noted that although the denial of a writ is not necessarily an approval of the appellate court's decision nor precedential, the Louisiana Supreme Court has had multiple opportunities to consider this issue and has repeatedly declined to do so. Finally, the court declined to certify questions to the state court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Guilbeau v. Hess Corp." on Justia Law

T-4 permit to Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas, LLC to obtain common-carrier status, which would give it eminent domain authority pursuant to the Natural Resources Code. Denbury Green, which was formed to build and operate a carbon dioxide pipeline known as “the Green Line” as a common carrier in Texas, filed suit against Texas Rice Land Partners, Ltd. for an injunction allowing access to certain tracts of land so that it could complete a pipeline survey. While the suit was pending, Denbury Green took possession of Texas Rice’s property pursuant to Tex. Prop. Code 21-021(a). The trial court concluded that Denbury Green was a common carrier with eminent domain authority. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded for proceedings consistent with the common-carrier test the Court established. The trial court granted summary judgment for Denbury Green. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that reasonable mind could differ regarding whether, at the time Denbury Green intended to build the Green Line, a reasonable probability existed that Green Line would serve the public. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and reinstated the trial court’s judgment, holding that Denbury Green is a common carrier as a matter of law. View "Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas, LLC v. Texas Rice Land Partners, Ltd." on Justia Law

Charles Robinson, Paul Robinson, and William Robinson appealed an amended judgment granting summary judgment in favor of THR Minerals, LLC, and deciding ownership of mineral and royalty interests in certain property. The Supreme Court concluded the assignment of royalty at issue was unambiguous, and the district court did not err as a matter of law in construing the assignment to decide the ownership of the subject mineral and royalty interests between the parties. View "THR Minerals, LLC. v. Robinson" on Justia Law

After the Mississippi Supreme Court held in "Jones County School District v. Mississippi Department of Revenue," (111 So. 3d 588 (Miss. 2013)), that a school district was not liable for oil and gas severance taxes on royalties derived from oil and gas production on sixteenth-section land, the Chancery Court of Wayne County held that Wayne County School District (WCSD) was owed interest by the Mississippi Department of Revenue (MDOR) on its overpayment of severance taxes at the rate of one percent (1%) per month. The chancellor determined, based on Section 27-65-53 of the Mississippi Code, that the payment should have started on June 5, 2013, ninety days after the Jones County decision. Finding that the chancellor correctly applied the statute, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the chancery court. View "Wayne County School District v. Morgan" on Justia Law

Ronnie Nelson owned a surface estate in Burke County who sought to use the mineral lapse statutes to obtain the mineral rights associated with the surface estate. Nelson published a notice of lapse of mineral interest against McAlester Fuel Company ("McAlester") for three consecutive weeks. Nelson filed an action to quiet title on 108 mineral acres in Burke County, a notice of no personal claim, and a sheriff's return in district court. Before filing his action to quiet title, Nelson also mailed a notice of claim and attempted to personally serve McAlester. The address to which Nelson mailed notice of claim appeared on a mineral deed dated March 6, 1958. McAlester filed no statement of claim within 60 days after Nelson published the notice of lapse. Nelson's complaint alleged he had substantially complied with the statutory procedure for claiming abandoned minerals. Nelson moved for entry of default judgment, and based upon what was provided to the district court and the fact McAlester did not file a statement of claim, the district court found McAlester had failed to use the mineral interests. The district court entered a default judgment on February 3, 2009. In 2015, McAlester filed a motion to vacate the default judgment. The district court concluded the judgment against McAlester was void and entered an order vacating the judgment quieting title. In its order to vacate, the district court determined Nelson failed to comply with the notice requirements of the statutory procedure for claiming abandoned minerals. McAlester moved to dismiss Nelson's action to quiet title for failure to state a claim and judgment on the pleadings. Nelson opposed the motion. Ultimately, the district court granted McAlester's motion to dismiss Nelson's quiet title action. On appeal, Nelson argued the district court erred because it concluded the abandoned mineral statute "requires a surface owner to conduct a reasonable inquiry to find a mineral owner's current address, even when an address appears of record." The Supreme Court found that this was not the basis for the district court's decision: the district court stated Nelson's mailing was not "reasonably certain" to reach McAlester. However, the district court then stated, "[a]llowing a claimant to pick any address from the record would encourage the claimant to always mail notice to the oldest address in the record in hopes that the address is stale, and that the notice would therefore not reach the intended target." The Supreme Court agreed with the district court that Nelson failed to comply with the statutory notice procedure, and affirmed its judgment. View "Nelson v. McAlester Fuel Company" on Justia Law

The parties in this case disputed title to certain mineral interests underlying certain property. The dispute arose out of a 1911 Laramie County tax assessment against Union Pacific’s mineral interests in the property and the county’s subsequent tax sale and issuance of a tax deed for the property. Family Tree Corporation, which claimed title to portions of the minerals, filed a complaint for quiet title and declaratory judgment against Three Sisters LLC, which also claimed an ownership in the minerals, and Anardarko Land Corporation. The district court quieted title to Family Tree based upon the 1912 tax sale. Anadarko appealed, arguing that the 1911 tax assessment against the minerals was unconstitutional, and therefore, the resulting tax sale and deed were void. The Supreme Court affirmed after drawing the line between a tax assessment defect that will render a tax deed void and one that will render the tax deed viable, holding (1) the error in Laramie County’s tax assessment against the minerals at issue rendered the resulting tax deed voidable, not void; and (2) accordingly, Anadarko’s challenge to the validity of the tax deed was barred by the statute of limitations. View "Anadarko Land Corp. v. Family Tree Corp." on Justia Law

The Board filed suit in Louisiana state court against various companies involved in the exploration for and production of oil reserves off the southern coast of the United States, alleging that defendants' exploration activities caused infrastructural and ecological damage to coastal lands overseen by the Board that increased the risk of flooding due to storm surges and necessitated costly flood protection measures. The district court denied the Board's motion to remand after removal to federal court, and then granted defendants' motion for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. The court concluded that the Board's negligence and nuisance claims necessarily raised federal issues sufficient to justify federal jurisdiction and thus the court did not reach the remaining issues. The court also concluded that the district court properly dismissed the negligence claim because the Board failed to establish that defendants breached a duty of care to it under the facts alleged, the Board's strict liability claim failed because the Board did not state a claim that defendants owed it a duty of care; the district court properly dismissed the servitude of drain claim; and the Board failed to state a claim for nuisance. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Board of Commissioners of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co." on Justia Law

In this case the trial court entered judgment terminating a bottom lease based on jury findings that the lease failed to produce in paying quantities over a specified period of time. The court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial, concluding (1) the rule against perpetuities did not invalidate the top lease, and (2) the trial court erred in charging the jury on the production-in-paying-quantities question. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the court of appeals correctly remanded for a new trial where (1) the top lease did not violate the rule against perpetuities; and (2) the trial court erred in charging the jury on cessation of production in paying quantities. View "BP America Production Co. v. Laddex, Ltd." on Justia Law

XTO Energy, Inc., appealed and Darwin and Jean Krenz cross-appealed a judgment awarding the Krenzes $800,000 for a pipeline trespass and ordering the parties to abide by certain documents for their future relationship after the district court construed a pipeline easement to authorize one pipeline on the Krenzes' land and found XTO's unauthorized construction and operation of a second pipeline on the Krenzes' land and use of their private road was a trespass. After review of this matter, the North Dakota Supreme Court concluded an April 2007 pipeline easement was ambiguous and the court erred in construing the easement as a matter of law. The Court therefore reversed the trial court's decision construing the pipeline easement and awarding the Krenzes $800,000 for the pipeline trespass and the court's decision requiring the parties to abide by their unexecuted negotiations involving their future relationship. View "Krenz v. XTO Energy, Inc." on Justia Law