Abstracts of Current Decisions on Mines and Mining: May to August, 1917 Page: 96
xiii, 111 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this report.
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DECISIONS ON MINES AND MINING.
RIGHT OF SURRENDER-LACK OF MUTUALITY.
An oil and gas lease provided that the lessee was to complete a
well within three months from its date or pay a stipulated rental
until a well should be completed. The lease gave the lessee the
right at any time on the payment of $1 to surrender the lease for
cancellation and thereafter all payments and liabilities should cease
and terminate. Such a lease or contract is wanting in mutuality
because for a nominal sum the lessee is given the right to annul it at
any time and end all liability thereafter accruing under the lease.
The lessee of such a lease can not enforce its terms by injunction as
courts refuse to grant equitable relief where, if granted, one of the
parties may nullify the action so taken by the exercise of a discre-
tionary right which either the law or his contract has conferred upon
him.
Advance Oil Co. v. Hunt (Indiana App.), 116 Northeastern 340, p. 343.
CASH BONUS-SURRENDER.
A cash bonus of $120 in an oil and gas lease supports each and
every provision in the lease and the lease being an indivisible con-
tract the cash bonus not only supports the full term of the lease, but
the option of the lessee to keep the lease alive by tendering delay
rentals.
Shaffer v. Marks, 241 Fed. 139, p. 155.
INJUNCTION TO PREVENT VIOLATION OF LEASE.
An injunction may issue in a proper case to prevent the violation of
a lease, where the remedy at law is not plain, practical, and effi-
cient to secure the ends of justice as the equitable remedy of injunc-
tion. But equity will not intervene to prevent the invasion of a
right where such invasion would only entitle the complainant; to
nominal damages, or in cases where it is doubtful or a matter of
speculation as to whether any damages will result to the complaining
parties. On this rule a lessee of an oil and gas lease who takes no
immediate steps to develop the leased premises on notice from the
lessor that producing oil wells have been drilled and are being operated
on adjoining lands within 300 feet of the line of the leased premises
can not by injunction prevent the lessor from releasing the premises
and can not by injunction prevent the second lessee from drilling for
oil upon the premises.
Advance Oil Co. v. Hunt (Indiana App), 116 Northeastern 340, p. 343.96
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Thompson, Joseph Wesley. Abstracts of Current Decisions on Mines and Mining: May to August, 1917, report, December 1917; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38745/m1/110/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.