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Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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12‐4897‐cv                                       

Beardslee v. Inflection Energy, LLC

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

______________

August Term, 2013

(Argued:  August 22, 2013                        Question Certified: July 31, 2014

Certified Question Answered: March 31, 2015 Decided: August 19, 2015)

No. 12‐4897‐cv

_________________

WALTER R. BEARDSLEE, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS CO‐TRUSTEE OF THE DRUSILLA W.

BEARDSLEE FAMILY TRUST, ANDREA R. MENZIES, AS CO‐TRUSTEE OF THE DRUSILLA

W. BEARDSLEE FAMILY TRUST, JOHN A. BEARDSLEE, AS CO‐TRUSTEE OF THE

DRUSILLA W. BEARDSLEE FAMILY TRUST, PHYLLIS L. BENSON, ELIZABETH A.

BEARDSLEE, LYNDA B. COCCIA, NATHAN J. DONNELLY, CAROLYN B. DONNELLY,

KEVIN P. DONNELLY, ROSE ANN DONNELLY, MARIE S. DONNELLY, WILLIAM J.

HANER, JOSEPH HANER, JAMES HANER, MARGARET LAWTON, GLEN MARTIN, LYNN

M. MARTIN, JOSEPH E. MCTAMNEY, B. LOUISE MCTAMNEY, BONNIE D. MEAD, R.

DEWEY MEAD, WAYNE R. MIDDENDORF, CYNTHIA L. MIDDENDORF, FLOYD E.

MOSHER, JR., LESA D. MOSHER, AKA LESA HUNTINGTON, MOUNTAIN PARADISE

CLUB NY 31 LLC, JAMES W. REYNOLDS, AS TRUSTEE OF THE JAMES W. REYNOLDS

TRUST, MARY A. PFEIL‐ELLIS, KERRY K. ELLIS, PAUL R. SALAMIDA, PAULINE M.

SALAMIDA, GARY D. SHAY, BONITA K. SHAY, BRAD A. VARGASON,

       Plaintiffs‐Counter‐Defendants‐Appellees,

        

–v.–  

INFLECTION ENERGY, LLC, VICTORY ENERGY CORPORATION, MEGAENERGY, INC.,

       Defendants‐Counter‐Claimants‐Appellants.

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B e f o r e   :

WINTER, WESLEY, AND CARNEY, Circuit Judges.

_________________

Appeal from a decision of the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York (David N. Hurd, Judge) granting the motion of landowner‐ 

lessors for summary judgment and denying the cross‐motion for summary

judgment of their lessees, various energy companies.  The District Court

concluded that the parties’ oil and gas leases had expired by their terms and that

the leases’ force majeure clauses did not extend the leases’ primary terms.  We

certified to the New York Court of Appeals two questions: (1) whether New

York’s moratorium on high‐volume hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as

“fracking”) was a force majeure event under the leases; and (2) whether the force

majeure clause modified the leases’ habendum clause and extended their primary

terms.  The Court of Appeals answered the second of those two questions,

concluding that the force majeure clause did not serve to modify the primary

terms of the leases, and declined accordingly to answer the first.  Applying New

York law as newly articulated by the Court of Appeals, we AFFIRM the

judgment of the District Court.   

   

THOMAS S. WEST, The West Firm, PLLC, Albany,

NY, for Defendants‐Counter‐Claimants‐Appellants

Inflection Energy, LLC, et al.

ROBERT R. JONES (Peter H. Bouman, on the brief),

Coughlin & Gerhart, LLP, Binghamton, NY, for

Plaintiffs‐Counter‐Defendants‐Appellees Walter R.

Beardslee, et al.   

WALTER P. LOUGHLIN (Walter A. Bunt, Jr., Bryan

D. Rohm, on the brief), K&L Gates LLP, New York,

NY, for Amicus Curiae Marcellus Shale Coalition.

     

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PER CURIAM:

Inflection Energy, LLC (“Inflection”), Victory Energy Corporation, and

Megaenergy, Inc. (collectively, the “Energy Companies”) appeal from the District

Court’s order granting summary judgment to Walter and Elizabeth Beardslee

and over thirty other landowners (collectively, the “Landowners”), and denying

summary judgment to the Energy Companies.  See Beardslee v. Inflection Energy,

LLC (Beardslee I), 904 F. Supp. 2d 213 (N.D.N.Y. 2012).  Because this case raises

significant and novel questions of New York oil and gas law, we certified two

questions to the New York Court of Appeals.  Applying New York law as

articulated by the Court of Appeals in its opinion addressing those certified

questions, we now affirm the judgment of the District Court.

We assume the reader’s familiarity with the District Court’s opinion; our

certification opinion, Beardslee v. Inflection Energy, LLC (Beardslee II), 761 F.3d 221

(2d Cir. 2014); and the related decision of the New York Court of Appeals,

Beardslee v. Inflection Energy, LLC (Beardslee III), 25 N.Y.3d 150 (Mar. 31, 2015),

reh’g denied, 2015 WL 3951961 (N.Y. June 30, 2015).  We restate briefly the most

salient facts.    

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I. Factual Background

Beginning in 2001, the Landowners entered into certain oil and gas leases

(the “Leases”) with the Energy Companies, granting the Energy Companies

rights to extract oil and gas underlying the Landowners’ real property in Tioga

County, New York.  Each of the Leases contains an identical “habendum

clause.”1  This clause establishes the period during which the Energy Companies

may exercise the drilling rights granted by the Lease.  The clause provides:   

It is agreed that this lease shall remain in force for a primary

term of FIVE (5) years from the date hereof and as long

thereafter as the said land is operated by Lessee in the

production of oil or gas.   

App’x 32 ¶ 1.  The habendum clause thus establishes both a five‐year “primary

term” and a secondary term lasting as long as the Energy Companies continue to

extract oil and gas from the land.   

In addition, each Lease contains what the parties refer to as a force majeure

clause, which speaks to the effect of delays and interruptions in drilling.  That

clause provides, in relevant part:

If and when drilling . . . [is] delayed or interrupted . . . as a

result of some order, rule, regulation . . . or necessity of the

                                              

1 A habendum clause, which is “typically found in standard oil and gas leases” such as those at

issue here, is used to “fix the duration of such a lease.”  Wiser v. Enervest Operating, L.L.C., 803 F.

Supp. 2d 109, 113 n.3 (N.D.N.Y. 2011).   

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government, or as the result of any other cause whatsoever

beyond the control of Lessee, the time of such delay or

interruption shall not be counted against Lessee, anything in

this lease to the contrary notwithstanding.    All express or

implied covenants of this lease shall be subject to all Federal

and State Laws, Executive Orders, Rules or Regulations, and

this lease shall not be terminated, in whole or in part, nor

Lessee held liable in damages for failure to comply

therewith, if compliance is prevented by, or if such failure is

the result of any such Law, Order, Rule or Regulation.   

App’x 33 ¶ 6.

On July 23, 2008, then‐Governor David Paterson “ordered formal public

environmental review to address the impact of combined use of high‐volume

hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) (commonly known as ‘fracking’) and horizontal

drilling.”  Beardslee III, 25 N.Y.3d at 154.  In particular, he “directed the New York

State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to update and

supplement its . . . generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) on

conventional oil and gas exploration.”  Id.  Accordingly, in 2009 the DEC issued a

draft supplemental GEIS (SGEIS).  See id. at 155.  The following year, on

December 13, 2010, Governor Paterson instructed the DEC to revise the draft

SGEIS to address comprehensively “the environmental impacts associated with

[HVHF] combined with horizontal drilling.”  Id. (quoting N.Y. Comp. Codes R. &

Regs. tit. 9, § 7.41).  Governor Paterson also mandated then that the DEC issue no

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permits for HVHF before the completion of a final SGEIS.  See id.  In Beardslee III,

the New York Court of Appeals described Governor Paterson’s 2010 orders as

imposing a statewide “moratorium on ‘[HVHF] combined with horizontal

drilling.’”  Id. at 155 n.4 (quoting Wallach v. Town of Dryden, 23 N.Y.3d 728, 740

n.1 (2014)).2   

II. Procedural History

In 2010, Inflection sent notices of extension to those Landowners with

whom it had contracted, asserting that New York’s regulatory actions constituted

a force majeure event under the Leases and thus extended the Leases’ primary

terms.  On February 8, 2012, the Landowners filed this declaratory action against

the Energy Companies in the United States District Court for the Northern

District of New York, seeking a ruling that the Leases’ primary terms had not

been extended and the Leases had instead expired at the conclusion of those

terms.  The Energy Companies counterclaimed, reasserting the position first

taken by Inflection in the 2010 notices.  

                                              

2 In June 2015, three months after Beardslee III issued, the DEC concluded its review of HVHF

and announced that it “will not establish a high‐volume hydraulic fracturing permitting

program; that no individual or site‐specific permit applications . . . will be processed; and that

high‐volume hydraulic fracturing will be prohibited in New York State.”  Findings Statement,

Final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining

Regulatory Program, at 41 (June 29, 2015), available at

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/findingstatehvhf62015.pdf.  

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The parties each moved for summary judgment.  The District Court

granted the Landowners’ motion and denied the Energy Companies’ cross‐

motion, concluding that the force majeure clause did not operate to extend the

Leases.  See Beardslee I, 904 F. Supp. 2d at 220‐21.  The Energy Companies timely

appealed.   

III. Our Certification Opinion and the New York Court of Appeals’

Answer

Because this appeal “turns on significant and novel issues of New York

law concerning the interpretation of oil and gas leases, a legal field that is both

relatively undeveloped in the State and of potentially great commercial and

environmental significance to State residents and businesses,” Beardslee II, 761

F.3d at 224, we certified the following two questions to the New York Court of

Appeals:

1. Under New York law, and in the context of an oil

and gas lease, did the State’s Moratorium amount to a

force majeure event?

2. If so, does the force majeure clause modify the

habendum clause and extend the primary terms of the

leases?

Id. at 232.   

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The Court of Appeals began by answering the second certified question.  

Construing the Leases “with reference to both the intention of the parties and the

known practices within the industry,” the court concluded that the force majeure

clause “does not modify the primary term of the habendum clause and,

therefore, does not extend the leases.”  Beardslee III, 25 N.Y.3d at 157.  It then

declined to answer the first question, which its answer to the second had

rendered academic.

In construing the Leases, the Court of Appeals observed, first, that the

habendum clause does not incorporate the force majeure clause either explicitly or

by reference.  See id. at 157‐58.  Second, the court rejected the Energy Companies’

argument that the habendum clause was modified by the force majeure clause’s

provision that “the time of such delay or interruption shall not be counted

against Lessee, anything in this lease to the contrary notwithstanding.”  The

court explained that the force majeure clause does not “conflict with the

provisions of the primary term of the habendum clause” and so has no bearing

on that term.  Id. at 158‐59.   

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IV. Application

Having received a definitive statement of New York law from the Court of

Appeals, we now apply that law in reviewing the District Court’s judgment.3  We

review de novo an order granting summary judgment.  See Westinghouse Credit

Corp. v. D’Urso, 278 F.3d 138, 145 (2d Cir. 2002).  Summary judgment in favor of

the moving party is proper “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute

as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of

law.”  Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).   

Under New York law, as the Court of Appeals has explained, the Leases’

force majeure clause does not modify the habendum clause.  Whether or not the

moratorium on HVHF and horizontal drilling qualifies as a force majeure event,

then, it did not operate to extend the Leases’ primary terms.  Accordingly,

because we perceive no factual disputes material to the legal question presented,

we conclude that the District Court correctly granted summary judgment in

                                              

3 In a submission filed in our Court after the New York Court of Appeals’ decision in this case,

the Energy Companies urge us not to follow Beardslee III, advancing the argument that the

Court of Appeals misquoted the Leases’ language and misapplied New York law.  Those same

arguments were presented to the Court of Appeals in the Energy Companies’ motion for

reargument there—a motion that the court denied.  See 2015 WL 3951961 (N.Y. June 30, 2015).  

Here, we note that the Court of Appeals did not misquote the Leases.  Moreover, we will not

second‐guess the court’s interpretation and application of New York law.  See Erie R. Co. v.

Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78‐80 (1938).

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favor of the Landowners and denied Defendants’ cross‐motion for summary

judgment.    

CONCLUSION

For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the judgment of the District

Court.

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