Joseph Ennis, Sr. v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, No. 13-1311 (4th Cir. 2013)

Annotate this Case

Download PDF

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-1311 JOSEPH E. ENNIS, SR.; MARJORIE G. ENNIS, Plaintiffs Appellants, v. CHESAPEAKE APPALACHIA, LLC, an Oklahoma limited liability company; STATOIL USA ONSHORE PROPERTIES, INC., a Delaware corporation; RANGE RESOURCES-APPALACHIA, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Defendants Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, at Wheeling. John Preston Bailey, Chief District Judge. (5:12-cv-00105-JPB) Submitted: August 20, 2013 Decided: October 2, 2013 Before KING, KEENAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Michael C. Harris, HARRIS WELSH & LUKMANN, Chesterton, Indiana; Eric M. Gordon, BERRY, KESSLER, CRUTCHFIELD, TAYLOR & GORDON, Moundsville, West Virginia, for Appellants. Kevin C. Abbott, REED SMITH LLP, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Appellees. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: In this diversity action, plaintiffs Joseph E. Ennis, Sr., and Marjorie G. Ennis, owners of an eighty-eight-acre parcel in Ohio County, West Virginia, seek a declaration that (1) they did not enter into a binding oil, gas and coalbed methane gas lease with defendant Range Resources-Appalachia, LLC (nee Great Lakes Energy Partners, LLC), and (2) Range thus did not validly assign any lease to defendants Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, and Statoil USA Onshore Properties, Inc. The Ennises also allege that they are entitled to compensatory and punitive damages for the loss of income and diminished property value that have resulted from the defendants illegal claim on the Ennises oil and gas. Concluding that a fully enforceable lease exists between the Ennises and Range, the district court granted a motion, made by Range solely on its own behalf, to dismiss the Ennises complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See Ennis v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, No. 5:12-cv-00105 (N.D. W. Va. Feb. 8, 2013) (the Dismissal Order ). That same day, the court issued an order for the Ennises to show cause why the complaint should not be dismissed as to Chesapeake and Statoil, in that the Ennises claims against those two defendants seem to hinge on the lack of a binding lease with Range. In response, rather than contending that their claims against Chesapeake and 2 Statoil are Ennises filed Dismissal independent a Rule Order on of their 59(e) the claims motion ground pronouncing a binding lease. to that against alter the Range, the amend the or court erred in Adhering to its earlier ruling, the court denied the Ennises Rule 59(e) motion and dismissed the complaint in its entirety. See Ennis v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC, No. 5:12-cv-00105 (N.D. W. Va. Mar. 1, 2013) (the Rule 59(e) Order ). The Ennises timely noted this appeal from the final judgment, contesting both the Dismissal Order and the Rule 59(e) Order. The Ennises maintain that they made an offer to enter into a lease when, on August 1, 2006, they signed and tendered a lease form that had been provided to them by Range that June; the form contained a commencement date of this __ day of June, 2006. On August 28, 2006, the form bearing the Ennises signatures now altered by Range to reflect a commencement date of August 1, 2006 was executed on Range s behalf. Range promptly recorded a memorandum of lease commencing on August 1, 2006, to Chesapeake (73.12%) and Statoil (26.88%) effective July 1, 2010. According to they the and conveyed Ennises, its they interest believed in for the four lease years that had entered into a binding lease with Range that had commenced on an unspecified day in June 2006, but were disabused of that belief sometime in 2010 when they discovered Range s alteration of the 3 commencement date to August 1, 2006. The Ennises now insist that such alteration constituted a counter-offer by Range that the Ennises never accepted, so that there was no meeting of the minds necessary for the formation of a valid contract. In pertinent part, the district court agreed with the Ennises that [t]he start date on the oil and gas lease is, indeed, an essential term as it in turn affects the termination date of the [five-year] lease. Dismissal Order 5. Nevertheless, the court expressed no difficulty in supplying that date in an effort to remove any uncertainty as to the rights and responsibilities Restatement (Second) of of the Contracts parties. § 204 (1981) Id.; see ( When the parties to a bargain sufficiently defined to be a contract have not agreed with determination respect of their to a term and rights which is duties, a essential term to which a is reasonable in the circumstances is supplied by the court. ). The court declined to enforce a date of this __ day of June, 2006, because to do so would not serve any party s interest in establishing a Dismissal Order 5. clear start or end date to the lease. Rather, the court deemed August 1, 2006 the day the lease was signed by the Ennises, as well as the date designated by Range to be the proper lease commencement date. See id. at 8 (noting that, had the contract remained in its original form with the language this __ day of June, 2006, the 4 Court would have nevertheless supplied the August 1, 2006, date as the most reasonable term ). In deeming supplying the a lease reasonable wholly commencement unenforceable, date the rather district than court observed that the choice of August 1, 2006, was harmless to the Ennises. That is, approximately one year remained on the five- year lease when development of the Ennises oil and gas was attempted, regardless of whether the June, 2006, or August 1, 2006, dates were used. See Dismissal Order 7-8 (distinguishing Southern v. S. Penn Oil Co., 81 S.E. 981 (W. Va. 1914), where defendant endeavored to use fraudulently altered lease to drill on plaintiff s land after expiration of unaltered version of lease). the Because we agree with the foregoing analysis, we affirm judgment of the district court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the Court and argument would not aid the decisional process. AFFIRMED 5

Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.