May v. Hazelwood Oil Co.

Citations

• 152 Pa. 518
• 25 A. 564
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1011

Syllabus

<p>[Marked, to be reported.]</p> <p>Oil lease — Forfeiture—Affidavit of defence.</p> <p>An oil lease provided that the lessee should, commence and prosecute to completion a test well for oil or gas on the demised premises, or upon other lands in the vicinity thereof, within thirty days after leases to the amount of five thousand acres shall have been obtained by the lessee, or else forfeit the rights granted by the lease, and should the lessee fail to obtain leases covering five thousand acres by the first day of January, 1887, the lessee should thereupon elect to proceed and drill as before stated in the lease, or, at its option, forfeit the lease; and further, it was agreed that the lease should be determined at the option of the lessee, its successors or assigns, should a fair test fail to develop, oil or gas in quantities to warrant further operations, notice of such determination to be given to the lessor in writing. The lease further provided for the payment of one dollar per acre for not drilling and prosecuting to completion one well on the premises within one year from the date of the lease.</p> <p>In an action to recover the rental provided by the said clause, an affidavit of defence is sufficient which avers that a test well was actually drilled, and that it proved to be a dry hole, yielding neither oil nor gas, and that the test proved that no oil or gas was to be found upon the premises ; that defendant openly and publicly removed the drilling machinery from the premises and abandoned all further operations thereon, and that plaintiff, well knowing that the well was a dry hole and that the premises had been abandoned, made no claim upon the defendant for any sum of money due under the lease for several years, and waived the service of any written notice of the forfeiture by defendant; and that subsequently plaintiff granted to another party an option to purchase all the underlying coal from the premises.</p>