Pittsburgh Partner Brant Miller and Senior Counsel Summerly Kulik successfully defended a summary judgment victory on behalf of one of the largest natural gas producers in the United States in an oil and gas lease dispute.
The dispute centered around a 2012 oil and gas lease and whether or not the lease continued in effect. The plaintiff sought a declaration that the lease had terminated and asserted claims for slander of title, breach of contract, conversion, and trespass damages. In sum, the plaintiff argued that the proposed unit that contained the plaintiff’s property was not validly pooled at the time the primary term of the lease expired and that operations were not conducted that would extend the primary term, causing the lease to expire as to a portion of the plaintiff’s property. Conversely, the Gordon & Rees team argued that, pursuant to the language of the lease, the property was validly pooled and that both field and office operations were conducted sufficient to extend the lease into its secondary term.
A primary dispute in the case centered on whether or not the unit that the plaintiff’s property was pooled into was a valid unit under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 1509.01 et seq. when the primary term of the lease expired. The Gordon & Rees team successfully maintained that the plaintiff was improperly applying Ohio well permitting regulations, Chapter 1509.01 et seq., and that the unambiguous lease language controlled. Specifically, Gordon & Rees contended that the pooling and operations clauses of the lease were broad and did not require a Declaration of Pooling to be recorded or require the permitting process or standards to be met to constitute valid operations or pooling under the lease. The court held that the lease language was unambiguous and controlled and did not require the pooling or unitization to meet the Chapter 1509.01 regulations that the plaintiff's argument relied upon. Following principal briefs and supplemental briefing on diversity jurisdiction of the parties, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in the defendant’s favor on all counts.
Mr. Miller is a Partner in the firm's Pittsburgh and Ohio offices, Office Managing Partner of the Weirton office, and Chair of the firm’s national Energy Group. In addition to the Energy practice group, he practices in the Commercial Litigation and Real Estate practice groups.
Ms. Kulik is Senior Counsel in the Pittsburgh office and a member of the Commercial Litigation, Real Estate, and Energy practice groups.