Derrick Lee Thomas v. State

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that § 3.40(a) of the Texas Administrative Code “permit(s) operators to pool acreage to create ‘a drilling unit or proration unit by filing an original certified plat’”
• stating that contracting parties are generally free to choose their own terms and courts should “respect and enforce” those terms given Texas’s “strong public policy favoring freedom of contract”
• describing such a clause as a special limitation the occurrence of which terminates the lease
• noting “[a] special limitation in an oil and gas lease provides that the lease will automatically terminate upon the happening of a stipulated event,” including, for example, “failure to commence drilling or reworking operations within the time the lease required”
• noting “[a] special limitation in an oil and gas lease provides that the lease will automatically terminate upon the happening of a stipulated event,” including, for example, “failure to commence drilling or reworking operations within the time the lease required”
• in construing an oil and gas lease, a court’s primary goal is to determine the parties’ intent as expressed by the lease’s plain language

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).