Skip to Content
The Seventh District Court of Appeals recently released an opinion that may affect landowners like you that previously engaged in abandonment efforts under the Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”). In Jeffco Resources, Inc. v. Albrecht, 7th District Court of Appeals (December 22, 2023), the Court dealt with the following set of facts:
In 1969, a prior owner of the property in question reserved all of the oil and gas underlying the property. In 2012, the then-surface owners published notice of its intent to abandon that mineral interest on the prior owner and her husband in the newspaper and followed by recording an affidavit of abandonment. Five years later in 2017, due to the changes in the caselaw surrounding the DMA, the surface owners undertook a second abandonment process by mailing a certified notice of abandonment to the last known address of the husband of the original reserving party (who the surface owner knew to be deceased), and then publishing notice of abandonment again in the newspaper and recording an affidavit of abandonment. During the second abandonment process, one of the heirs of the mineral owner filed a claim to preserve the mineral interest.
The surface owner then filed suit to seek a ruling that the 2012 abandonment process was successful, such that the claim to preserve in 2017 was ineffective. The surface owner established that in 2012 it searched the public records and probate records in Harrison County for the mineral owner and her husband; that it located estate files for both the owner and the husband that failed to identify the mineral interest and did not identify addresses of any potential heirs, which led to the surface owner’s original notice of publication.
The mineral owner’s heirs noted that the husband’s probate estate identified the names of individuals who could be (and turned out to be) potential heirs of the mineral owner and their husband, but not their addresses, and the surface owner should have searched for those individuals prior to serving notice via publication. The trial court found in favor of the mineral owner’s heirs, due to the surface owner failing to attempt to serve the individuals identified in the husband’s probate estate.
In upholding the trial court’s ruling, the Seventh District Court of Appeals found that the surface owner failed to exercise “reasonable diligence” in locating potential heirs of the mineral owner. The Seventh District found that, because the husband’s probate file identified non-probate assets held by the husband and other individuals jointly and with survivorship rights, and that one of those individuals subsequently signed the estate’s tax forms, that it was a reasonable inference that those individuals were heirs, such that they needed to be investigated further. In determining that “ignoring the information in the probate records did not constitute reasonable diligence in attempting to identify and locate the holders of a mineral interest,” the Seventh District upheld the trial court’s ruling and ruled in favor of the mineral owner.
With the constantly evolving state of the case law surrounding the DMA, you should review any prior attempts to abandon mineral interests underlying your property to see if the searches pass the heightened standards of Jeffco and other recent cases.
NOTE: This general summary of the law should not be used to solve individual problems since slight changes in the fact situation may require a material variance in the applicable legal advice.
Wayne A. Boyer, Esq.
Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty Co., L.P.A.
wboyer@kwgd.com
330-497-0700