A federal judge in West Virginia recently opined on the Texas Supreme Court case Coastal Oil & Gas v. Garza Energy Trust, saying that it allowed oil and gas drillers to \u201csteal\u201d from small landowners. <\/p>\n
In the 2008 Garza case, the Texas Supreme Court overturned a verdict awarding millions of dollars to Hidalgo County landowners who claimed that hydraulic fracturing on neighboring property had caused drainage of their underground minerals to an adjacent well. The Texas high court ruled that the rule of capture applied, protecting drillers from such claims as long as they followed the law and did not, for instance, drill a slanted well underneath neighboring property.<\/p>\n
Some legal observers have argued that in cases of hydraulic fracturing, also known as \u201cfracking,\u201d drainage is nearly inevitable and the rule of capture should not apply. The Texas Supreme Court said in the Garza case that the remedy for landowners worried about (more…)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A federal judge in West Virginia recently opined on the Texas Supreme Court case Coastal Oil & Gas v. Garza Energy Trust, saying that it allowed oil and gas drillers to \u201csteal\u201d from small landowners. In the 2008 Garza case,…<\/span><\/p>\n