Give leasers/landowners back our legal rights and mineral rights so we can sue oil companies; reverse Big Oil verdict for "Marie Gassaway v. Dominion."

According to the West Virginia Supreme Court, once a person signs a lease with an oil company, that person and their descendants no longer own the minerals. They are conveyed to the oil company, and the lessor loses all legal rights and mineral rights to their own land and minerals.

The “law” to which the court refers in my case is generally “Oil and gas are liquid in nature and cannot be contained by land or mineral owners; only oil company ‘drillers’ can ‘contain’ and therefore actually own the oil and gas minerals.” Lessors cannot sue to get their minerals back or to get out of their lease. Landowners are “ambushed“ into signing oil company leases believing that they also will continue to own minerals and be legally protected with the “lease ” in what is supposed to be a joint effort between the lessor and the oil company to acquire the minerals out of the ground.

Landowners and mineral owners obviously never intended to give away their minerals and land and become tenants to the oil companies! Landowners still live in America, and I find it hard to believe that all the courts in America agree with the West Virginia Supreme Court and have landowners signing away their constitutional rights to own their own property and their right to legally defend themselves against the oil companies in court! We lessors cannot even sue each other for royalties because the court says lessors do not own minerals; the oil company does.

Therefore, lessors cannot sue each other successfully! The West Virginia Supreme Court wants the oil companies to be free to pay or not pay whomever they wish. Lessors cannot successfully sue the oil company or another lessor. It should be illegal for the oil companies and the West Virginia Supreme Court to take away all our legal rights and not allow anyone to defend themselves legally! Laws should equally apply to all, especially big corporations. Oil companies should not be exempt from our country’s laws! We should be able to sue oil companies over ownership of minerals and royalties!

The Court refuses to help us or any lessor/landowner with any legal problem arising out of oil companies’ leases; no one can sue for minerals or royalties and win! The court’s verdict sets a precedent for all future cases, keeping anyone from winning a case against any oil company by saying that only oil companies can “contain” the minerals to own them. The court told us no one can sue and win over minerals and that oil companies are above the law. Read “Marie Gassaway vs. Dominion” (http://law.justia.com/cases/west-virginia/supreme-court/2011/11-0535-8.html). The oil company has all legal rights after signing oil and gas mineral leases, so do not sign! Lessors are “merely owed a royalty after signing”. The West Virginia Supreme Court bragged about quickly flushing my case using their ”new revised rules,” saying that I did not have a case because in their opinion, lessors/mineral owners do not own the minerals; the oil companies do; thus, the oil companies cannot be sued successfully for minerals.

They agreed with the late Judge Holland, who told my lawyer and me that only drillers can contain the gas; lessors cannot; therefore, only the oil company can legally own the gas or other minerals. Lessors are merely “owed a royalty” if King Oil believes that they are owed a royalty. If the oil company does not believe you are “owed a royalty,” like someone “reserving out the minerals in an old deed,” then they do not have to pay you. 47 years later after we purchased the land on my ten acres where I own land and ½ of a 1/8 royalty, Dominion found that someone else had “reserved out the minerals” in a previous deed and that this reservation had just come to their attention. Dominion stopped paying us entirely on one well; they did not even pay $50.00 a year for a derrick being on our property! Judge Holland said Dominion did not possess the wells, nor did they drill the wells for us lessors; Dominion has the wells only for themselves.

Since the West Virginia courts agree that the oil companies do not drill wells for lessors even though we have a lease with them, they drill and acquire the gas and oil just for themselves. Stop signing leases--stop giving your land and minerals away to the oil companies. No one can sue and win for “breach of contract.” I tried that argument along with adverse possession, attornment, estoppels, or any law because the oil company cannot be sued and win over minerals. Oil companies are all above the law; that is the law to which the West Virginia Supreme Court keeps referring in my case. The Court does not allow lessors to sue each other over minerals or royalties because it is the oil companies’ business who they pay, not the Court’s business.

From 1957 until 2007, we received from Dominion $50.00 per year flat rate for one well on the 192 acres even though we were supposed to get ¼ of 1/8 royalty for the minerals. Dominion, backed by the courts, only had to pay us lessors $50.00 a year just for the derrick on our land. We had full ownership of land and minerals from 1957 until 1964, but we were still only paid for the derrick. The West Virginia Supreme Court has always agreed with Dominion and other oil companies in denying lessors any rights to our own minerals or royalties! Stop the madness, sign my petition, and stop signing leases for oil companies!

Sign my petition to stop the judges and the oil companies’ legalistic double talk! They admit we are “owed a royalty.” If we do not own the minerals, then for what are we owed a royalty? Which came first “the chicken or the egg”? If we have no legal rights, then why are our names on the leases? The court says that oil companies cannot be sued for minerals, yet that is what the lessor conveyed to them in the lease. The lease gives all rights to the oil companies. The lease gives a blank check to the oil companies and makes us tenants on our own property. Thanks a lot, West Virginia Supreme Court! You really know how to wow the oil industry and destroy lessors/landowners. We are the citizens of West Virginia; the oil companies are not the citizens of West Virginia!

Two parties signed the lease, yet the Court says that only one has legal rights and that the other party, the lessor, has died. Hey, Dominion, your “original signer” has died too after signing the 1899 lease! So the West Virginia Supreme Court, according to my case, must believe that Dominion lives forever whereas the lessors/landowners do not! Lessors/landowners are replaced just like the people working for Dominion are replaced. We need the same legal rights as Dominion’s workers.

They are not omnipotent, and neither is Dominion or CNX (whatever they are calling themselves these days)! This means that the laws that apply to you and me do not apply to the oil companies; they cannot be sued for “breach of contract,” even if they do not pay you. They have a lease, whether it benefits you or not; you cannot order them off of your property. The West Virginia Supreme Court said that they will back up the oil companies and that you will lose in any court case just as I lost to them. The court made an example out of my case and me for all leasers and landowners! Read “Marie Gassaway vs. Dominion” and listen to the glee with which they dispensed my case.

They made an example out of me to show other lessors what would happen to them if they dare to sue an oil company, so listen to their example and stop signing oil and gas leases. Stop giving away your property to the oil companies. Read the part which says that if you are not an “original signer” of the lease, your children cannot sue for estoppels or attornment. Your children and all other lessors lose their rights under the oil companies’ lease!
The oil companies do not have to tell you about other oil companies drilling wells on your leased property or surface-owned property.

I found out from the state of West Virginia that there are a total of ten wells still producing oil and gas on what for 50 years has been the 202 acres on a 265 acre lease (the “W.L. Davis Lease”). This lease was my family’s lease and property where we received royalties, and we were commonly referred to by Dominion as mineral owners. Why did the oil companies call us lessors/mineral owners when the West Virginia Supreme Court believes only oil companies own minerals? To get more people to sign more leases of course! Eastern American, Carbon Black, and Carter Oil (which is now going by another name), drilled wells about which we did not know until I did research to sue Dominion to see how many wells Dominion had drilled! Right now what the court did not take away from me is ten acres and one well even though there are two wells on the ten acres. The Court and Dominion or CNX (or whatever their name is now…it is hard to keep up with what they are calling themselves from day to day) took all wells away from me except one! I do not even get $50.00 a year for having a derrick on my land anymore for which I used to be paid for 50 years even though on that other well, we were supposed to be getting minerals too. They got out of it by just paying the $50.00.

Many people who sued Dominion in “Jones vs. Dominion,” (I opted out of that case to have my own case against Dominion) are still only getting paid the flat rate for derrick and nothing for minerals even though they, by deed, are supposed to get a percentage of mineral royalties like me!
Read Marie Gassaway vs. Dominion and research this “WV SORO” website (http://www.wvsoro.com) instead of signing a lease with the oil company. Sign my petition to force the West Virginia Supreme Court to reverse their “pro oil industry” verdict for my case. Let us stop multiple oil companies from drilling multiple wells using multiple leases on the same property at the same time like my 202 W.L Davis leased acres!
My dad bought 192 acres in 1957 in Doddridge County, West Virginia. I was three years old. According to our deed, we were supposed to get ¼ of 1/8 mineral interest from Dominion Oil. There was one well on 192 of which we knew that Dominion had drilled.

Unknown to my family and me, Carter Oil also had a well on the 192 on which, in all these years, we have never been paid anything. A couple years went by where dad wrote Dominion telling them that he was the new owner and should get paid for the well, but Dominion just ignored him. Finally, dad drove to Dominion’s headquarters, and they said the well was paid on a “flat rate” basis instead of the ¼ of 1/8, which was on dad’s deed. Dad was informed that the “flat rate” for his well was $50.00 per year. There was nothing dad could do to get the percentage instead of the flat rate, so they wrote dad out a check for the small amount. Then dad left! Remember, it was only $50.00 a year! In 1960, 10 acres out of the same tract of land under the same lease came up for the sheriff’s sale. Dad bought the 10 acres, which also had a Dominion well on it. According to our deed, we were supposed to get ½ of 1/8 percentage royalty for any well on ten acres. That’s what Dominion told us, and that’s for what Dominion was paying us. Deeds are relatively hard to understand, and dad did not graduate from high school. He joined the CCCs instead to support his parents and family and later volunteered to join the army for World War II.

Dad’s checks varied between $15.00 to $25.00 per month for that well on the ten acres over the years while he had possession until he gave 10 acres and mineral rights to the whole 202 acres to me in 2001. The 192 acres were foreclosed around 1964 when dad was unable to earn money because of service-connected disability from getting both legs frozen and obtaining shrapnel in his back and side in World War II during “The Battle of the Bulge”. My dad Edmund Edsel Boyce was part of Patton’s 3rd Army and was sent with the West Virginia Mountain Division to rescue the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne. As a result, dad was hit by shrapnel to his back and side, and he froze both legs. After dad was rescued after firefights at the Bastogne region in which he heavily participated, he came close to losing one or both legs. Dad had very poor circulation in both legs. He lost his ability to walk as the shrapnel wore into his back and side, and he had a serious operation in the early 1960s at the West Virginia Veterans Administration Hospital to regain circulation and feeling in both legs.

Dad was told by the Veterans Administration that he would be lucky to live to be 40 years old! Dad was in a wheelchair fighting for disability money from the government during the time of foreclosure. We had already moved to California because dad was ordered by the Veterans Administration to move to a warmer climate. If he failed to move, the Veterans Administration would not make his service-connected disability payments.

As I said, I was given 10 acres and mineral rights for a total of 202 acre mineral rights that mom and dad had where no-one had ever challenged dad’s ownership. Dad received royalties for one well on 192 acreage and one well on ten acres, the 265 acre lease. Both wells together earned dad around $20.00 to $30.00 at the most per month from 1957 to 2001 (the year he gave them to me)! Dad was not “Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies,” nor am I! Both wells had been drilled by Hope Gas around 1899, which used to be Dominion, and the wells were very close together, on the same lease, on the same original tract of 265 acres, which could explain why the new owners of the 192 acres in 1965 and afterward never challenged our ownership of wells or minerals. Landowners and Dominion never checked to make sure, until around 2007, when Dominion informed me I would not be paid for three wells on the 192 acres that Dominion had just drilled, nor would I be paid for the 1899 $50.00 per year “flat rate” well anymore after I had just signed permission papers for them to drill! I noticed that they made me sign permission papers for drilling first and then notified me I would not be paid on those wells last!

Dominion also had me to sign paperwork for them to continue to cross my ten acres to get to the 192 acres while Dominion had me signing papers to drill and for me to be paid for new drilled wells. I would not have settled for so little had I known I would not be getting paid for any well on the 192 acres, and of course, that is why Dominion timed their paperwork as they did. Dominion is not paying a full-time staff of lawyers for nothing! So now instead of getting paid for a total of 10 wells by Dominion, Eastern American, Carbon Black, and what used to be Carter Oil, all with wells on 202 acres, using different leases, I am only paid a very small amount for one. Why did Dominion allow other oil companies to come and drill wells with other leases on what we were being told was just our lease? We assumed Dominion would keep other oil companies out!

Apparently it is perfectly legal for oil companies to never tell you that they have drilled and to never pay you for the wells. The West Virginia Supreme Court, from what I have experienced with them, would probably say all of this is perfectly legal. I was never given a chance to tell all this to any Court; they spent all their time trying to get me to quit suing Dominion. Also, I could only sue one oil company at a time!
It is also perfectly legal for you to sign my petition, send it to every court in America, and tell everyone to never sign a mineral or gas lease from an oil company ever again! Stop giving away your property and mineral rights and making oil companies rich at the landowners’ and the lessors’ expense!