JOAs and Liability In April of this year, I wrote about a case that was currently before the Texas Supreme Court titled “Wendell Reeder v. Wood County Energy, LLC, et al.” In that case, the operator, Reeder, argued that the 1989 Model Form Joint Operating Agreement’s exculpatory clause prevented him from being held liable for […]
From the General Counsel
It Pays to Look Closely Property owners—or prospective owners—take heed: just because your county’s records do not show a lease as binding on your property does not mean that such a filing does not exist in an adjacent county. A not-often-relied-upon property code provision recently became the bane of one surface owner’s use of its […]
From the General Counsel
Accommodating the Accommodation Doctrine How the surface estate may be used—more specifically, whether a surface owner is incommoded by a mineral owner’s uses of that surface estate—is a question that the Texas Supreme Court is being called upon to answer. Recently the Texas Supreme Court was asked to clarify what a surface owner is required […]