The Eleventh Court of Appeals, located in Eastland, Texas, recently dealt with an issue I tend to avoid, if I can, in these articles: the seemingly never-ending dispute between the respective rights of surface owners and oil and gas operators. In this unique case, the operator, Southwest Royalties, Inc., sued the surface owner, Mr. W Fireworks, to prevent Mr. W from interfering with a fence, gate and road.

Mr. W owns land next to property that is operated by SRI. A dispute arose because SRI uses a road that goes across Mr. W’s property to access its wells. The Court noted that the “drill site, a fence surrounding the drill site, the access road to the drill site that goes across Mr. W’s property, and a short chain-link fence running along the side of the access road have been in existence since 1974.”

In order to allow delivery trucks more room, Mr. W planned to remove part of the fence. In opposition to that plan, SRI installed a gate across the entrance to the access road, locked it, and did not give Mr. W a key. SRI also filed a lawsuit against Mr. W, asking the trial court to restrain Mr. W from “interfering with SRI’s use of the fence, the gate, and the road,” and to declare that SRI had an easement for use of the road.

The trial court agreed with SRI, and granted a permanent injunction against Mr. W that prevented Mr. W “from interfering with SRI’s use and enjoyment of the access road, the fence, the gate, and the locking mechanism on the gate.” The trial court also granted SRI “an exclusive easement for their exclusive use, enjoyment and maintenance of the access road, its fence, gate, and its locking mechanism.” Mr. W appealed the trial court’s decision because the trial court effectively prevented Mr. W the use and enjoyment of a portion of its own property.

The Eleventh Court of Appeals found that the trial court was within its discretion to enjoin Mr. W from interfering with SRI’s use of the road. As such, it “affirmed the portion of the trial court’s judgment that allowed SRI to maintain a fence surrounding the access road and a locked gate at the road’s entrance and the portion of the judgment that enjoined Mr. W from interfering with SRI’s use and enjoyment of the access road.”

The Court of Appeals did, however, determine that the trial court should not have excluded Mr. W from access to the road. The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the trial court, and ordered it to modify its judgment “to ensure that Mr. W would have access to its entire tract, such as by providing that Mr. W would have a key or combination to the gate’s lock or by allowing Mr. W to place a second lock on the gate.”

Certainly a fair result, and one that might have been reached by the parties without judicial intervention. The ruling is consistent, however, with the long-standing dominant estate rights of the mineral owner/lessee, while appropriately balancing those rights against the use and enjoyment rights of the surface owner.