McAfee & Taft litigator Phil Hart succeeded in obtaining Oklahoma Supreme Court writ of certiorari to the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals to review affirmance of summary judgment construing assignment of oil and gas lease as having assigned all rights rather than being a borehole assignment only. Below is an excerpt from the reply in support of petition for certiorari.
The Court of Civil Appeals (“COCA”) has ignored the admonition that “[p]articular clauses of a contract, though persuasive in isolation, are not deemed controlling when violative of the general intent of the parties expressed in the contract.” [Citing authorities.]
This rule of contract construction is particularly apt here, given Plano’s reliance to the exclusion of everything else, on the words “all leasehold,” appearing in the third line of the granting clause of the 2002 Assignment as set out on page 2 of Plano’s Answer, the words “Said leases” on line 7 thereof, and the word “leases” on line 9 thereof.
However, COCA and Plano ignore the fact that those isolated words must be considered in the context in which they appear. “All leasehold” next follows “that certain wellbore” and is followed by “and all surface and subsurface equipment and all materials thereon and therein, more particularly described as the Claude E. Newell #1 Well.” The scrivner of the 2009 Assignment was obviously taking care to assure that it was understood that oil and gas leasehold rights insofar as the Newell Well and production therefrom was concerned and not merely the borehole as such and associated equipment and materials, that was being assigned.
And what of the scrivner’s references to “Said leases” and “leases” that follow? What are we to make of the scrivner’s use of the plural? The only reasonable conclusion is that the scrivener had no idea what lease or leases were involved. Nor did he care, since his only concern was to convey all leasehold rights insofar as the Newell Well and production therefrom were concerned.