Hello,

   Many people have heard of the Wiseman v Potts case in Morgan County. There's another now from harrison county that ruled exactly the opposite, against the surface owners. The following is from a blog I found from a law firm when doing a google search for "dodd v coskey" which is the name of the case in Harrison county.:

 Ohio Court Limits Dormant Mineral Act Claims

December 5, 2012

Due to the recent frenzy surrounding oil & gas exploration in Ohio, the Dormant Mineral Act has become the

centerpiece of much litigation as landowners look to cash in on the newly discovered resources lying deep beneath their

property. The Dormant Mineral Act, found in R.C. 5301.56, generally establishes a process by which a severed mineral

interest may be deemed abandoned and automatically reunited with the ownership of the surface estate if one of four

enumerated “savings” events has not occurred within a preceding 20 year period, known as the look back period. The

Act was originally passed in in 1989, and in 2006 was amended to clarify the procedure for reuniting the mineral and

surface estates and to address concerns that the original statute did not provide notice to mineral interest owners

regarding termination of their interests.

Pursuant to the Act, the mineral interest will not be deemed abandoned if it was the subject of a “title transaction” within

the look back period. Many severed mineral estates were created through an “exception and reservation” of the oil and

gas interest in a deed which transferred only the surface rights. Ohio courts have now been faced with determining

what constitutes a title transaction for purposes of the savings events. Specifically, an issue has arisen whether the

mineral estate itself must be transferred in a title transaction, or whether a transfer of the surface only which references

the original mineral estate “exception” constitutes a title transaction within the meaning of the Act.

Recently, in the case of

Dodd, et al. v. Croskey, et al., the Harrison County Court of Common Pleas held that the

mineral interest itself did not need to be transferred. Instead, a general reference to a mineral estate exception and

reservation clause in a transfer of the surface is sufficient to qualify as a “title transaction” under the Act and, thereby,

qualifies as a savings event. In reaching its conclusion, the Court noted that “the plain language of the statute

establishes that something less than the conveyance of the mineral interest must be sufficient to trigger the exclusion.”

The Court also noted that “the identification of ‘exceptions’ to the property conveyed is an essential part of any deed

because the exceptions are as critical as the metes and bounds description in defining the specific bundle of rights, i.e.

property, conveyed by the instrument.” Notably, the Court’s decision will serve as a guide for many courts that will face

this issue in the coming months.