Young v. Forest Oil Co.

Citations

• 194 Pa. 243
• 45 A. 121
• 1899 Pa. LEXIS 768

Syllabus

<p>Lease — Oil and gas lease — Equity—Specific performance — Sinking additional well — Multifariousness.</p> <p>Where a bill in equity to enforce covenants in an oil lease joins as defendants the original lessee and a large number of successive assignees of the lease, and no joint title, possession or liability is averred or shown, and all the alleged trespasses, defaults and’breaches of covenant by the different assignees for a period of seven or eight years are pitched together into hotchpot, and each lessee made liable for the sum total, without regard to the statute of limitations, and whether the alleged injury was done before, or during, or after his interest or possession under the lease, the bill is demurrable for multifariousness and for want of equity.</p> <p>Where a lessee under an oil and gas lease has entered upon land and sunk wells he is entitled, in determining whether he shall sink additional wells, to follow his own judgment. If that is exercised in good faith, a different opinion by the lessor, or the experts, or the court, or all combined, is of no consequence, and will not authorize a decree interfering with him.</p> <p>A bill in equity will not lie by the lessor of an oil and gas lease against the lessee or his assigns, to compel the latter to test part of the leased land not yet drilled, or, upon his failure to do so, to surrender the land to the lessor, unless it is shown that the failure of the lessee to drill amounts to a fraud upon the rights of the lessor.</p> <p>Oil and gas lease — Termination of lease— “ Found or produced in paying quantities.'1'1</p> <p>Where a lease is to continue as long as oil or gas is found or produced in paying quantities, the phrase, “ found or produced in paying quantities,” means paying quantities to the lessee or operator. If oil has not been found, and the prospects are not such that the lessee is willing to incur the expense of a well (or a second or subsequent well as the case may be), the stipulated condi