Oil and Gas Disputes

We work for plaintiffs, individually or as members of a class action, to enforce their rights against big companies or anyone who unlawfully interferes with oil & gas, mineral or water rights. Contact us about your case.

Before an oil and gas companies can drill for minerals, the company must own or lease the rights to those minerals. Many oil and gas disputes arise over conflicts between a landowner and oil and gas companies over leases, mineral rights, payments, royalties due, failure to return the site to its original condition and other related issues. Water is also a precious resource and for that reason water rights are taking center stage in the legal arena as more and more conflicts arise over the right to own and use water. The attorneys at MUELLER LAW are ready to help resolve and, if necessary, litigate claims on behalf of plaintiffs whose mineral and water rights have been infringed by individuals or large corporations.

Some examples of oil and gas lawsuits, not handled by Mueller Law but from around the country, indicate the often complex nature of litigation related to oil and gas and other natural resources as well as the value of those assets:

In Gardner, et al. v. Shell Oil Co., an Oklahoma jury ordered Shell Oil Co. to pay millions to trustees of royalty owners for their share of a prolific oil well dug in the early-1970s. Shell did not include the income from this well in the calculations of net profits sent to the plaintiffs.

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The United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, in Jones, et al. v. Dominion Transmission, et al., approved a multi-million dollar settlement in favor of 25,000 oil and gas owners to resolve a class action alleging that the company cheated them out of natural gas royalties. The plaintiffs also claimed that the company improperly deducted post-production expenses from royalty payments.

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In a class action suit entitled Lindauer et. al v. Williams Production RMT Company filed in Garfield County, Colorado, the plaintiffs alleged that Williams had not properly calculated royalty payments because it failed to fully account for proceeds that it received from the sale of gas and other products. The complaint also alleged that the company failed to refund amounts withheld from royalty payments to pay taxes. The parties settled.

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