Peppertree Farms, L.L.C. v. Thonen
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In this case involving two separate deeds to property in which successive grantors conveyed the surface rights and part of the mineral interest while retaining part of the oil and gas rights the Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the court of appeals, holding that the court of appeals erred in part.
Both deeds at osier were executed before 1925 and did not contain words of inheritance. The lower courts concluded that the conveyances created reservations of the oil and gas rights that retained life estates in those rights expiring on the respective deaths of the grantors. The court of appeals affirmed summary judgments in favor of Appellees - Peppertree Farms, LLC and Jay and Amy Moore - and quieting title to the oil and gas rights claimed by Appellants - KOAG, Inc., Richard Reinholtz, and Sylvia Ann Miller. The court further concluded that Miller's and Reinholtz's interests - but not KOAG's - would have been extinguished by operation of the Marketable Title Act, Ohio Rev. Code 5301.47 et seq. The Supreme Court reversed in part, holding words of inheritance were not required to retain more than a life estate in excepted interests in the oil and gas; and (2) summary judgment against KOAG was erroneous.
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