Court Opinion

ID: 9639901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:51:13.090955+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.838195
License: Public Domain

SIMS,' Judge
(dissenting)/3)
f The majority opinion is so far from my conception of the law of .adverse possession iquninerals, and the,question is of such ¿importance in my judgment as to call for a short dissenting opinion.
Í agree with the majority that the required factors to establish adverse possession of minerals are identical with those required to establish" adverse possession of the surface of land. It is for this reason I sharply disagree with the majority. To my 'mind there can be no possession of fuga-cious minerals until they are brought to the surface:
., After citing many authorities in referring to “color of title boundaries under ground”, the majority say these authorities ignore the fact that mineral estates are generally described by metes and bounds marked off on the. surface. This may be true as to hard and stationary minerals, but certainly it has no applicability to fugacious minerals. It is impossible to give the boundaries of fuga-cious minerals .under ground. We have written that an owner of an oil or gas well is the owner of all oil or gas the well produces regardless of what boundary of land it drains. United Carbon Co. v. Campbellville Gas Co., 230 Ky. 275, 18 S.W.2d 1110. Also see 24 Am.jur., “Gas and Oil”, § 5, p. 22.
.It is my opinion that adverse possession in oil or gas is limited to the oil or gas which is produced by the well or wells which has or have been drilled. This view is supported by Piney Oil & Gas Co. v. Scott, 258 Ky. 51, 79 S.W.2d 394, which the majority opinion overrules in part. Once' established, this adverse possession lasts so long as the well or wells continue to produce. ;
For the reasons given.I most respectfully dissent. 1 . .