powers predecessor coverage conveying every right left were possessed to exploit the vast geothermal resort of known as the geysers the plain language of the lease and the rights expressly granted to give geysers power the quote sole and exclusive right to decide and quote to decide what is built on the land to exploit or facilitate the exploitation of that reserve to reiterate their point that sole and exclusive means sole and exclusive the parties concluded and this is that in the and twenty seven with a clear statement of their intent the possession by lessee of said land shall be sole and exclusive for the purposes here of and for purposes incident or related there to less or than reserved narrow defined rights a few narrow areas in which it could use the property and stated those uses shall be carried on subject to and with as little interference as is reasonably possible with the rights and operations of lessee here under so typically courts construe mental mineral racists against the lassie right don't we start with that proposition there are cases that have set a correct so it seems to me i mean i'm calling you you're on a call you guys are and then the other are g p and the others g d p i guess or whatever but for it seems that you also not not only  exploitation of the geothermal reserve and we think that the lease regardless even if the lease is construed narrowly as against the lessee the parties expressly chose broad and inclusive language and they reiterated that language by making clear that not only does the lessee have sole and exclusive as exclusive rights to do anything identified in the lease and we think that the lease expressly covers profiting from the exploitation of the reserve and i'll get to that  easement itself this is i'm having as opposed to say the neighboring plant impact the steam reservoir how would it impact geiser powers extraction operations on g d p s land well it to you have to understand the nature of the that property well we disagree we understand that that is what the trial court found but the nature of the reserve is that all of everything below it migrates and transfers because of the nature of geothermal rights and so the the right to exploit the reserve means that they sold their right to the reserve and i think a couple of cases are really helpful in wellin p doesn't even have a right to the reserve it sold us its right to the reserve but what it's claim but they don't own the reserve they own the right to exploit the route to accept whatever they can get out of it but they still don't know  right it is it is it's a right to the world or whatever well whoever can access the minerals and it's liquid minerals underneath the reserve and so what the bolton had a question you agreed that no one but that your client guys are power cannot stop the neighboring lessee from exploiting the reserve by drilling on the neighboring land that is a yes that is a different issue though that's why it but that the that's not a different issue from the point of view of the trial judge who said you can't stop it from happening so just allowing the transmission  is something different it's a commercial use well i mean we certainly disagree with the construction of commercial a commercial and i but it is fundamentally different to allow a separate entity with no relationship whatsoever with this property at issue to drill and it's the guys at the trial courts conclusion that that exploitation is going to go forward as it is planned regardless of what happens on this property it really we think resolved in a question of fact that should not have been resolved on summary judgment there is the record say tonight that you stand your brief you offer more extensive evidence if we reversed summary judgment what evidence are you talking about because it seems like it's just interpretation of the contract well we we we think that the contract should firmly and it does clearly support us but there are several questions of fact for example we think the trial court reserved resolved disputed issues of fact related to course of dealing against us instead of giving us the benefit of the doubt so to speak instead of resolving  our favor as the court was required to do on summary judgment the court said the course of dealing does not it does not i forget the language but it does not support us meaning that the court found ambiguity and so conclude and so rejected our argument and said that we haven't established course of healing but there was evidence in the record to support our argument that a course of dealing shows that the parties recognized that we have these rights there was a well we had i think the the district court that just a part took a peek under the pillow a peek under the covers and looked at all that and said i can't really sort this out exactly it doesn't really you don't even get to that point right rect if it's not ambiguous we don't get to that we do think though in that way and others questions about what interference is contemplated by the lease the court concluded basically that you take a parcel of land and you just treated as if it's kind of ninety degrees you know up and down and everything underneath that is what is captured by i have a question about though guys are in terms of guys or power has many other steam extraction wells in the area how does that factor in turn now it's just another words how is it guys are powers itself guilty of engaging in the behavior that negative impacts the other party's right to contractual benefits because the current parties contemplated that guys are power would have extensive property that it would be drilling a lot of wells in the property this is reflected in the lease itself so you can do what they can't do is what you're saying absolutely under the plain language and it's not unclean hands no not at all it is i mean the parties it is reflected in the language of the lease at two hundred and twenty seven dollars where the parties talk about by products from the vicinity about steam and by products from the vicinity it's clear that the parties contemplated that geysers power would be drilling wells all throughout the reserve so it's also result in this is so so what if instead of giving an easement for power lines geyser development just gave the neighboring property lessee an easement to bring all of the equipment over geyser developments land to develop the a neighboring site it is our position that they cannot profit from exploitation of the reserve and we think that that is clear from the language of the lease and from california law and i would like to point the court to a couple of cases that we think really make this point before we do that would you agree that the lease is silent concerning you where the your client whether the lesser must contain your client's express consent prior to granting easements on the property the lease does not explicitly address that point not that specific point but what it does is it gives us sole and exclusive rights to exploit the property to take steam from the property and as a literal matter exploitation of the reserve on a neighboring property is taking steam from the property that's why in the record at  and one the letter from that competing geothermal producer that letter reflects the contemplation of the parties that are steam will be reduced so our steam will lessen the record reflect that there had been prior exploitation of the steam from the adjoining property and this was just a plan by a lessee to redevelop it to started up again that is there is the record does reflect that p g and e in the past had exploited that what's not clear and that's why this is an issue for the jury because it's not clear whether or not that was done with geysers powers consent some of the cases that are in the guys are powers pret predecessors consent p g n e was had broad rights to drill wells and to exploit the reserve in the fifty's and sixty's when this started and so there's a lot of questions about the history and what exactly was done by the parties over the course of this doesn't that raise a question a legitimate question as to whether or not the consent of the lessee was required before easements could be granted if those easements had been granted previously without consent doesn't that raise a legitimate question that the course of dealing upon which your client realize is not sufficient to raise the question of ambiguity we have offered evidence to establish our argument as to the in the court the trial court resolved ambiguities against us a trial for evidence goes both ways in terms of course to dealey the under california law the court is entitled to say as a matter of law that there is not sufficient we contend under california law to say that there is insufficient evidence to assess to support a jury's verdict in our favor and that's really or a verdict by the fact finder in our favor and that's really the question we have presented evidence of course of dealing that supports our position the trial court rejected that evidence and reached basically occlusion a conclusion of fact against us effectively held that we didn't conclusively established this  weighing the evidence against one of the other was just saying here's my interpretation of the contract now look at what you present me to see whether or not my interpretation of the contract is should be changed so that's not evidence it's not ruling in favor of one party or against another party it's just confirming whether or not the interpretation adopted by the core is correct i mean we think that the court's analysis one in two steps one is the least unambiguous and the court held that it is unambiguous we think the court erred in that and under the under the under the you know to cheat and look under the covers and said this doesn't change my mind and we do the same and stat and construction all the time we say it's not ambiguous this is what it says but ok we'll go ahead and look you didn't change my mind sure i understood our point is that that the court misinterpreted the contract and that of course is an issue of law and we you know i would like good morning please the queen learning good morning to a western appearing on behalf of plaintiffs in a peli geyser development partnership this is a case about interpret in the words of recorded mineral lease the text of the lease indicates a relatively this not violate the terms of the lease the fundamental problem with appellants approach is anything but straightforward it requires that this court go beyond the four corners of the lease and read provisions into the lease simply aren't there in the text for the answer to your question is i don't know that i can tell you that there is no agreement between geyser development and western geo power so the so the district court properly resisted going beyond the four corners of the lease instead stayed within the four corners of the lease and interpret its words according to its plain an ordinary meaning and that was looking at the electrical and easement for electrical transmission lines as long as it does not relate to steam extracted from the lessers property and as long as the electricity is generated from steam from somebody else's property that doesn't violate the terms of the lease and the granting of an easement exchange for money is a commercial activity under the plain and common sense definition of what a commercial is the district court committed nowhere in reaching that conclusion and reading the contract and all of this is supported by the text of the lease itself if you look at the recycles in a lease the lease very st thing the lease says is the purpose of the lease is for steam extraction from less party intended for guy their power to have to share the surface with a competitor we give them the exclusive right to extract steam from our land the competitor is not  from our land and if the parties had wanted to for bed us granting easements for powerline transmissions they could have put that expressly in the lease but they did not there the lease is very careful and talking about their sold possession to say that really is for the purpose of the lease the purpose of the lease is steam extraction from our land that's that's what the lease us the lease is designed to do well what about two there's the hancock whale case it's an older case  lassies operations by training oil from a common pool thereby reducing the amount recoverable under the lease should that case or principle have any effect in our analysis i don't believe so your honor because that case fundamentally involves slant drilling which is not the issue here the issue here is whether or not we can grant an easement for a power transmission line for steam that's not extract from our property and that's a completely separate issue i think in the issues we're in that case which again w you know the classic example where you're draining oil from somebody else's property by building a well that's relatively close to that so again looking at the terms of the lease itself the lease is clear and with the right still  and exclusive right to extract steam from the lessers property the lessee then is also given the right to build facilities to extract that steam and is given the right to convert the steam electric power and to distribute it on the lease is clear on  that the lease further goes on to say that they have the right of their rights of right away and a right to put up facilities and this is where we get into the language regarding the vicinity of the property that language clearly applies just the by products of steam they try to take a leap from that texas say that somehow the lease applies the entire geysers forty square miles of the geysers it clearly doesn't with the language that link course in lease is saying hey they get the by products of steam on our property as from steam in our property or by products and s migrate from other people's property they get that too in other words i guess that wouldn't make the question concerns the reference to premises in the bit the senate of the land actually speak he wouldn't make sense for that class to apply only to steam in a way those two questions the clause clearly only applies to steam by products because of the separates itself with the two force that we pointed out in the least in terms of the steam byproducts those are sulfates they have minerals in them that can be where the byproducts may have originated from so if it's on our if it's on our land then they get to have it clearly under the lease but that's all that clause a saying is not some trying to expand the rights of the entire geothermal reservoir again the only rights we can give them in that regard is to extract steam from our property that's the limit of the right we could transfer in terms of mineral oil and that's what we give them it would apply to other people or doing another portions of the property so again we now know what the purpose of the leases and what the rights are they have the sole in the schools of possession of the lease but only for the purposes there of or for purposes and said general related there too and that language is very important exact clearly limits their rights under the lease the things that relate to the lessers uses of the land trump the lessees uses of the land that's true it is important though the one thousand nine hundred and fifty six amendment contrary to what a pollen is trying to extrapolate from it doesn't talk about sort of abstract concepts such as the profit or operations or things of that nature without porson elisa's their use of the land again or tethering ourselves into the land their use the land trumps the lessee now this case is not about any particular easement it's actually not directly about the western geo easement but the application of our granting the easement to western geo kind nicely demonstrates the analysis which is western easement to western geo would be for electrical power line transmission that does not land under the analysis i suggest at the very beginning of my argument that doesn't violate the terms of the lease and honestly this court could stop there as did frankly the district court because it's a supply the text of the lease to the situation and made a ruling both parties did semitics forensic evidence to try to support course in dealing i think the criticism that appellant has a district court there is unfair the district court did not engage in exercise of weighing evidence or interpretation district court took a look at the evidence and said no this is not assist me with interpret in the words of the contract because they are plain and clear to me frankly the most material extrinsic evidence of boron this was the evidence that the directly bears on the issues here and contrast of the evidence that guys are power submitted were six consent agreements for easements over a period of sixty three years and only four of those actually related the easements the other two appear to relate to cleaning up t by products of steam the problem with those four consent agreements as a district court found as a pure to be completely unilateral there was no evidence of geysers development consented to those knew about them or any context for them at all guys or power submitted no evidence or testimony giving any context to these four easements and the district court correctly looked at us and said evidence of unilateral conduct isn't very good evidence of course in dealing obviously because there's no correctly determined that that was not enough for him to change the interpretation of the contract so when you take the text of the contract and this is a whole you can really start seeing the weaknesses in the palace argument because  wants to read a no compete clause into this lease since we want to say that no circumstances the lesser can make any deals and isn't any transactions that anybody that is a potential competitor in the entire geysers throws of our which is forty acres callahan pointed out before geysers power is maintaining one hundred and five dollars leases throughout the geysers maintains three hundred and forty dollars extraction wells there outside a property of a competing with the less sore for years doing exactly the same thing the lessers complains of that geyser development might do only we're not even going to do that we can't control what a competitor such as western geo might do with their land we have no control over that we submitted evidence into the record the western geo could start extracting steam from their property regardless of any easement that geysers development were to provide to western geo and that evidence was uncontroverted so we can't control what somebody  going to do with their land they would you guys they had to just they'd have to just go a different route to have kept right that's correct your honor but they can do that and you can't stop them if you could only we could only impact obviously our land not somebody else's property so if if western geo does that that still can affect the reservoir on g d p as property right yes your honor as would be the case of anybody else other than geysers power that would extract steam throughout the entire geysers it would lower the steam and obviously women geysers power extract steams from somebody else's property that lowers steam that's underneath our property mutual profit of the parties and the little test to detect their profits because if western jiao gets the transmission line and it's cheaper for them to do what they do and then they're more competitive when i for paris sat how it affects their profit is that what they argued are what i think they did argue that i think they have a broader argument in general that anything that we might do with anybody else that owns any property and the entire geysers that could potentially negatively impact them would violate the terms of the lease which is an extremely broad interpretation of the lease that isn't that isn't supported by the words so i don't think their argument is thank you your honor as i'll try to go quickly i do want to point the court to a couple of cases that address the nature of the rights that were granted because we think it's critical that it's not just kind of gas in place or or what is in place underneath the land we were granted the right to profit a profit of print and if you look at chandler case from one hundred years ago that was cited with approval in callahan which is the key california case on this you see that it recognizes  and thirty five it is and that still is the case that define our major and that defines the nature of the rights that were granted and in chandler the court made clear that when fear on the landowner owner there transferred it rights it gave up the right to also exploit the reserve it gave up the right to basically compete with the entity to which it had transferred rights i don't know if this competition they're not exploiting the reserves they're simply granting an easement for money they are profiting from the exploitation of the reserve would it be different if they took a if the deal had been for them to take some stock if this was a publicly held company and so they had were partially owners construction of commercial is so important important because it demonstrates just how broadly they have to define that one word in order to reach the activity here they have to contend that commercial means