Background
In 2008, the plaintiffs’ mother leased oil and gas exploration rights on her land for five years. In 2009, the lessee assigned the lease to the defendant, and the mother ratified the lease in early 2013. The defendant drilled a well on adjacent property and completed fracking in June 2013. The plaintiffs’ mother conveyed the parcel to the plaintiffs upon her death in December 2013. In 2015, the plaintiffs filed claims for trespass and conversion, which were previously litigated and resulted in summary judgment for the defendant in state court. The plaintiffs filed a similar action in federal court, which was removed from state court and resulted in summary judgment for the defendant.
The court’s reasoning
The court assumed the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history. The court reviewed the grant of summary judgment de novo. The court held that the plaintiffs’ tort claims were doomed from the start because the lease, ratified by their mother during the year the fracking began, authorized the activities the plaintiffs argued constituted a continuing trespass and conversion. The court noted that the plaintiffs’ repudiation argument was based on a misreading of correspondence and was largely irrelevant because the plaintiffs did not sue for breach of contract. Furthermore, the court emphasized that the plaintiffs failed to adduce sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on the issue of whether proppants were injected onto their land. The plaintiffs’ expert report based on a hypothesis regarding horizontal distance did not bridge the evidentiary gap.
Plaintiffs’ tort claims were doomed from the start because the lease—ratified by their mother during the year the fracking began—authorized the types of activities that Plaintiffs now argue constituted a continuing trespass and conversion.
Briggs v. Southwestern Energy Prod. Co., No. 25-2174 (3d Cir. Apr. 9, 2026)
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces that oil and gas leases ratified by landowners can bar subsequent trespass and conversion claims regarding extraction activities on adjacent land, even if the extraction affects the landowner’s property through subsurface migration or proppant injection, provided the lease authorizes such activities.