Court Ruling Finds That Ohio DMA and MTA Can Coexist Successfully
From Vorys' Energy & Environmental Law Blog:
The Seventh District Court of Appeals reaffirmed that claimants can use both Ohio’s Marketable Title Act (“MTA”) and Dormant Mineral Act (“DMA”) to extinguish and abandon, respectively, mineral interests. In West v. Bode, 2019-Ohio-4092, the appellant-surface owners attempted to extinguish a severed oil and gas royalty interest under the MTA. The holders of the royalty interest argued, in part, that the MTA did not extinguish the royalty interest because, as between the MTA and DMA, the DMA is the more specific statute with regard to terminating mineral interests and the DMA did not abandon the royalty interest. The Court rejected the royalty holders’ argument, as it had done in similar, prior cases. However, in its decision, the Court offered its strongest defense of the MTA to date.Read the rest of this post by clicking here.