Ronald Lee Kupfer and Beth S. Kupfer v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, Zachary Blair, and SWN Production Company, LLC

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed dismissal of the petitioners' claims against the respondents concerning ownership of oil and gas underlying a sixty-acre parcel. The court held that the deed unambiguously reserved mineral rights for parcels one through eight but not for the separately described ninth parcel, leaving the petitioners without ownership or standing to pursue conversion and trespass claims.

Holdings

1. The deed unambiguously reserved coal, oil, gas, and other minerals from parcels one through eight only; it did not reserve any mineral rights under the separately described Ninth Parcel.
2. Because petitioners did not own the oil and gas underlying the Ninth Parcel, they lacked standing to assert their claims concerning those minerals.
3. The allegation that the deed reserved all mineral rights was a legal conclusion rather than an admitted fact, because interpretation of an unambiguous deed is a question of law for the court.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the May 2, 1990 deed reserved coal, oil, gas, or other mineral rights under the Ninth Parcel.
2. Whether the circuit court properly granted judgment on the pleadings and dismissed the claims where the deed established that petitioners did not own the oil and gas underlying the parcel.
3. Whether the allegation in the amended complaint that the deed reserved all mineral rights had to be accepted as true at the motion-to-dismiss stage.

Disposition

affirmed