Ohio’s Fifth District Court of Appeals recently held that the 1989 version of Ohio’s Dormant Mineral Act applies to current disputes concerning ownership of severed mineral estates. The court in Wendt v. Dickerson followed previous rulings from the Seventh District Court of Appeals to find that the 1989 DMA is self-executing in nature and automatically vests ownership of a severed mineral estate in the surface owner after a 20-year period of non-use. The Ohio Supreme Court is expected to provide the definitive ruling on whether the 1989 or 2006 version of the DMA applies in early 2015.
On September 26, 2014, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in favor of MarkWest Liberty Midstream & Resources, LLC. MarkWest had purchased a 71.5 acre parcel of undeveloped land in Cecil Township, Pennsylvania, and had applied to the township’s zoning hearing board for a special exception under the zoning ordinance to construct and operate a natural gas compressor station.
The zoning hearing board denied MarkWest’s special exception application holding that MarkWest failed to satisfy the zoning ordinance’s requirements that the compressor station would be of the same general character as other permitted uses, and that its impact would be equal to or less than other permitted uses. MarkWest appealed to the trial court, which affirmed the zoning board’s decision. MarkWest then appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
On appeal, MarkWest argued that the zoning board erred because the compressor station is of the same general character as an “essential service” and because it meets the standards for permitted uses in the Township’s I-1 Light Industrial District. The zoning hearing board argued that MarkWest is a commercial enterprise that is neither a public utility nor an entity that provides an essential service to the public. The Commonwealth Court noted that the issue is not whether MarkWest’s proposed use is an “essential service” as defined, but rather, whether MarkWest’s proposed use is of the same general character as any essential service. The court then held that the zoning hearing board did not make any finding that the proposed compressor station was not of “the same general character” as other permitted uses. Instead, the court found that the zoning hearing board applied the wrong legal standard by requiring the use to be “of the same character” rather than “the same general character.”
Accordingly, the Commonwealth Court concluded that the zoning hearing board’s position was an unreasonable interpretation and application of the zoning ordinance, and it reversed the portion of the trial court’s decision affirming the denial of the special exception application. The Commonwealth Court remanded the case to the trial court and directed it to immediately remand the case to the zoning hearing board with the direction to grant MarkWest’s special exception application within 45 days of receiving the remand order.
The Seventh District Court of Appeals decided two additional legal issues concerning application of the 1989 version of the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”) in Tribett v. Shepard. The two issues were whether application of the 1989 DMA in the lawsuit was barred by Ohio’s 21-year statute of limitations to recover title to real property and whether the 1989 DMA is constitutional. On the first issue, the Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the case was not commenced within 21 years of the enactment of the 1989 DMA on March 22, 1989. The Court reasoned that the lawsuit was not time-barred because the 1989 DMA contains a three-year savings clause, which is March 22, 1992. Twenty-one years from March 22, 1992 is March 22, 2013. Plaintiff’s lawsuit was filed in April of 2012 and was therefore not time-barred. In dicta, the court commented that the statute of limitations defense “may have merit” in lawsuits filed after March 22, 2013.
The Court also found that because the 1989 DMA contained a three-year savings clause, application of the statute is not an unconstitutional taking.
The Seventh District Court of Appeals overturned the Monroe County trial court’s decision in Hupp v. Beck Energy Corporation finding that a standard oil and gas lease form was void as against public policy. The appeals court found that the delay rental provision did not allow the lease to be held in perpetuity by making nominal payments, that the phrase “capable of production” means that a well drilled on the leasehold must be capable of producing, and that where a lease allows production in paying quantities to be determined “in the judgment of the lessee” it does not allow a lessee to arbitrarily determine whether a well is capable of production because courts impose a good faith standard on the paying quantities requirement.
The appeals court made additional rulings which will be reported in a future post on Shale Energy Law Blog.
Citing a recently decided case in Colorado, the bankruptcy trustee for Norse Energy filed a motion in early August urging the New York Court of Appeals to re-hear arguments in the case. In June, the Court of Appeals issued an opinion which affirmed local zoning laws adopted by two upstate towns that prohibited oil- and gas-related activities within their borders. The motion filed by the trustee in August asserted that a Colorado court’s rationale in striking down a voter-approved local law prohibiting hydraulic fracturing provides support for the position that municipal-wide drilling bans directly conflict with New York’s Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law. In response, the environmental group Earthjustice recently filed a motion urging the Court of Appeals to reject the trustee’s request on the grounds that the motion for reargument was untimely and the Colorado decision was based on different laws and legal analyses.
A recent decision from the Seventh District Court of Appeals, Eisenbarth v. Reusser, adds a new wrinkle to the ongoing legal battles concerning the applicability and scope of Ohio’s Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”). The Seventh District previously ruled in Walker v. Shondrick-Nau that the 1989 DMA applies to current disputes over ownership of severed mineral interests and that a mineral interest which was “dormant” for a twenty-year period merges with the surface of the property. In further applying the 1989 DMA, the Court in Eisenbarth decided that the 1989 DMA only applies to the twenty-year period immediately preceding its enactment and that it does not apply on a “rolling” basis to successive twenty-year periods. Under this ruling, the 1989 DMA would not apply if any statutory savings event occurred after March 22, 1969 (twenty-years preceding the 1989 DMA’s enactment) because the person claiming that the mineral interest was abandoned would have to rely on a period of time occurring outside of the prescribed twenty-year period.
The Court also ruled that a recorded oil and gas lease is a title transaction for purposes of the DMA. This issue is currently the subject of an appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court in Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C. v. Buell.
Veteran attorneys Timothy Miller from Robinson & McElwee, and Christopher ‘Kip” Power, Mychal Schulz and Robert Stonestreet from the Charleston office of Dinsmore & Shohl have joined forces with Babst Calland in providing senior-level legal counsel in key practice areas including environmental, litigation and employment. The addition of the new attorneys and staff will double the size of Babst Calland’s Charleston office which opened in 2011. For more information, please visit the firm’s website.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission appealed the Commonwealth Court’s July 17, 2014 Opinion and Order in the Act 13 case, which resolved a number of issues remanded by the Supreme Court.
Review Babst Calland’s Administrative Watches for in-depth analyses of the July 17, 2014 Commonwealth Court decision and December 19, 2013 Supreme Court decision.
The Ohio Supreme Court will review a key question of state law concerning application of the Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”). In Corban v. Chesapeake Exploration, LLC, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio certified the following questions to the Ohio Supreme Court for review:
(1) Does the 2006 version or the 1989 version of the DMA apply to claims asserted after 2006 alleging that the rights to oil, gas, and other minerals automatically vested in the surface land holder prior to the 2006 amendments as a result of abandonment?
(2) Is the payment of a delay rental during the primary term of an oil and gas lease a title transaction and “savings event” under the DMA?
The question of whether the 1989 or 2006 version of the DMA applies to current disputes concerning ownership of mineral rights has been the subject of numerous lawsuits throughout eastern Ohio. Trial courts have reached varying conclusions, but the Seventh District Court of Appeals recently ruled that the 1989 version is self-executing and can still be relied upon. A decision from the Ohio Supreme Court will presumably resolve this unsettled issue of law.
In its far-reaching decision in Robinson v. Commonwealth, which was issued on December 19, 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated several critical provisions of Act 13. Additionally, the Supreme Court remanded to the Commonwealth Court to address whether the remaining sections of Act 13 can be severed and whether several sections of Act 13 were unconstitutional. Yesterday, the Commonwealth Court reached its decision on the remanded issues.
Regarding severability, the Commonwealth Court held that the last sentence of Section 3302 and all of Sections 3305 to 3309 were not severable and, therefore, invalid. The cumulative effect of this invalidation of all substantive portions of Chapter 33 of Act 13 is that local zoning matters relating to oil and gas will “now be determined by the procedures set forth under the [Municipalities Planning Code] and challenges to local ordinances that carry out a municipality’s constitutional environmental obligations,” and that the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission no longer has the authority to review local ordinances for compliance with Act 13 and withhold well fees where defects were found.
Regarding the other issues, the Commonwealth Court dismissed claims that providing notice only to public drinking water systems following a spill from drilling operations and that prohibiting health professionals from disclosing the identity and amount of hydraulic fracturing additives were unconstitutional special legislation. The Court also dismissed the claim that Act 13 conferred the power of eminent domain to illegally permit taking private property for use by a private enterprise.
Review our recent Administrative Watch for more in-depth analysis.
For more background, review our blog post on the Supreme Court Decision.
On July 11, 2014, a New York state trial court dismissed two similar cases in which the plaintiffs sought to compel the State to finalize a Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (“SGEIS”) pursuant to the State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA”) (Wallach v. N.Y. State Dep’t of Envtl. Conservation, N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 6773-2013; Joint Landowners Coal. of New York Inc. v. Cuomo, N.Y. Sup. Ct., No. 843-2014). The court dismissed both suits based on the plaintiffs’ lack of standing after finding that a party raising a SEQRA challenge “must demonstrate that it will suffer an injury that is environmental and not solely economic in nature,” and that in both suits the plaintiffs’ injuries were purely economic. Although a draft version of the SGEIS was first published in September of 2009, a final version has yet to be issued. The delay is due in part to a decision by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to withhold its release of the SGEIS until the state health commissioner issues his findings on hydraulic fracturing.
In a recent opinion, the Pennsylvania Superior Court addressed whether Pennsylvania’s Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 (the “Act”), and the applicable statute of frauds contained therein, applies to oil and gas leases. In Nolt v. TS Calkins & Associates, LP, a landowner executed an oil and gas lease to lease the oil and gas rights in a 98-acre parcel of land. The landowner thereafter agreed to sell a portion of his property to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs subsequently filed a quiet title action arguing that the oil and gas lease is invalid and created a cloud on the title on their property. More specifically, the plaintiffs argued that the oil and gas lease was subject to the Act, and that the statute of frauds contained in the Act requires a lease to be signed by both the lessor and the lessee to be valid. Because the lessee did not sign the lease, the plaintiffs argued that only a year-to-year lease was created and that it had expired. In response, the defendants argued that an oil and gas lease is not a lease governed by the Act, but instead is a transfer of realty subject to the more general statute of frauds, which requires only the signature of the grantor. The Pennsylvania Superior Court agreed with the defendants and held that the transaction did not create a lease, but rather a transfer of a property right in the oil and gas. Accordingly, the conveyance was subject to the general statute of frauds, not the statute of frauds contained in the Act, and the plaintiffs’ argument fails.
Today the New York Court of Appeals issued an opinion affirming local zoning laws adopted by two upstate towns that prohibited oil and gas-related activities within their borders. Specifically, the Court ruled that there was nothing within the plain language, statutory scheme and legislative history of the New York Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (“OGSML”) that manifested an intent by the legislature to preempt a municipality’s home rule authority to regulate land use. The Court expressly stated in the decision that it was not passing judgment on “whether hydrofracking is beneficial or detrimental to the economy, environment or energy needs of New York,” noting that the cases only “concerned the relationship between the State and its local government subdivisions, and their respective exercise of legislative power.” A copy of the Court’s opinion can be found here.
The Sixth Circuit recently affirmed summary judgment granted to Chesapeake Appalachia, L.L.C. by the Southern District of Ohio court, holding that Chesapeake could extend its oil and gas lease with the plaintiffs on the same terms in the original lease. In Eastman v. Chesapeake Appalachia, L.L.C., the plaintiffs had argued that a provision providing Chesapeake with an option to “extend or renew under similar terms a like lease” required renegotiation of the lease’s terms. The court held that the lease could be unilaterally extended by Chesapeake, and that they would also have had the right to renegotiate a renewed lease.
Yesterday the New York Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in two cases challenging the authority of a municipality to ban certain oil and gas activities within its jurisdiction. The Court is reviewing two lower court decisions from May 2013 which held that New York’s Oil, Gas, and Solution Mining Law (OGSML) does not preempt local zoning laws.
During the oral arguments, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman stated that both sides present valid public policy issues. “On the one hand, you’re saying yes, we should have a comprehensive strategy to deal with such an important issue to our state–energy,” Lippman said. “And on the other hand, municipalities believe (they can) determine how they’re going to live. They want some voice in how they live.” Attorneys representing the parties challenging the bans argued that New York’s interests in pursuing a uniform energy policy are paramount. In response, the attorneys for the municipalities argued that because the OGSML does not expressly supersede zoning laws, local governments are free to regulate land use within their borders as they see fit. The Court of Appeals is expected to issue its decisions in July 2014.