Article the Oil Tycoon of Sanpete County or Do Not Insult the Potato Salad
| Publication year | 2015 |
| Pages | 26 |
| Citation | Vol. 28 No. 6 Pg. 26 |
November, 2015
Learned Ham, J.
Do you realize how hard it is to get free legal advice in this state?
There I am, minding my own business, when the phone rings. I find myself talking to Larry. Larry says he’s a landman (although SpellCheck is convinced Larry is a sandman). Larry says he works for an oil company and that I own some mineral rights they’d like to lease. Larry insists that my great Uncle Bud left me the mineral rights to a piece of Sanpete County many years ago. This is news to me. My day is brightening up considerably. I am about to become an oil and gas tycoon. One of the idle rich. I knew my ship would come in eventually, but I didn’t imagine it would be docking in Moroni.
My new best friend is going to send me the lease, which I am to sign and return. He does, but I don’t.
“Larry, it says here in paragraph 17 that ‘Lessor hereby warrants and agrees to defend the title to the Leased Rights.’ Larry, I have no idea whether I have title to the Leased Rights and I don’t think I’m going to warrant or agree to defend it. I’m curious, though, would you please send me your title work?” (I actually spent the first year of my legal career, or a long and dull part of it anyway, doing oil and gas title opinions, but that was a few, or maybe thirty, years ago and I’m unlikely to be able to make sense of anything Larry might send me.)
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. It’s confidential.”
“The company expects me to warrant and defend your title work, but won’t let me see it?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, it’s just a standard form. The company would never make you do that.”
“Oh, OK. It says here I get a royalty, but it doesn’t say when or how often it’s paid. Shouldn’t it spell that out?”
“If there’s any oil there we’ll pay monthly, don’t sweat that.”
“Fair enough. What if there’s a spill or the company pumps the well full of toxic goo and somebody has to clean it up? Where’s the part that says the company will hold me harmless?”
“The lease probably doesn’t say anything about that, but I’m sure the company would take care of you.” (Larry may be an oil company litigator’s nightmare, but I’m starting to warm up to him.) The closer I look at the lease, the more I realize that I am not going to be an oil and gas tycoon after all, even if they agree to modify all the unconscionable parts of it. I...
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