WHEELING — A Pennsylvania couple is suing Antero Resources Corporation for a second time since 2020 alleging criminal trespass.
The federal lawsuit also names David Beem, Tyrone Beem, Diane Beem, Todd Beem, Craig Beem, Shelly Stubblefield, Mason Cole Beem, Katelyn Beem, Seth David Beem and Christopher John Stubblefield as defendants.
Michael Cofield and Karen Cofield claim they approached Antero after obtaining the deed for certain property and offered to lease mineral rights, but Antero informed them that it already produces natural gas from the tract, under a lease granted to it by the Beems, who are successors-in-interest to the Riggs deed grantees, according to a complaint filed June 7 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia at Wheeling.
The Cofields claim when the filed their first lawsuit in 2020 and the case eventually went to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, courts refused to look at the Cofields' "voluminous extrinsic evidence."
They argue that oil and gas ownership is not determined by one document and they were "prepared to present their voluminous extrinsic evidence if both courts would have granted them to be heard and not told. The fact that the Beems and their predecessors in title failed to assert ownership of the fifty acres by either attempting to correct the Land Books of Tyler County, West Virginia with Certified Title or to pay taxes on the same, such that Petitioners actually acquired their title through a tax sale for nonpayment of taxes, subsequently provided Antero with Certified Title."
The Cofields claim they have one-fourth interest in the oil and gas underlying the property and it's being drained.
Antero and the Beems Defendants have entered into a lease agreement for the Property, and Antero is producing oil and/or gas from the Property and, according to information and belief, has paid the Beems Defendants both bonus payment and royalty payments," the complaint states. "Antero has refused to enter into a lease with the Plaintiffs despite being advised and presented with Certified Title for Plaintiffs’ ownership of the Property."
The Cofields are seeking compensatory damages and for Antero to grant them a lease for the rights. They are representing themselves.
The case is assigned to District Judge John Preston Bailey.
In May 2022, the Supreme Court issued a memorandum decision in the 2020 case between the Cofields and Antero.
"We agree with the Cofields that the deed language is unambiguous, but we disagree with their inventive interpretation," the justices wrote in the decision. "'The mere fact that parties do not agree to the construction of a contract does not render it ambiguous. The question as to whether a contract is ambiguous is a question of law to be determined by the court.'"
The circuit court found the contractual language plain and unambiguous, the court wrote.
"We agree that where the conveyance described 'reserves in and under property hereby reserved[,]' without qualification, and the conveyance went on to use the conjunctive 'and' to link the fifty-acre tract and the two-hundred-fifty-acre tract when describing the reserves, it is apparent that the deed intended to create a reservation of certain mineral rights under all of the surface property conveyed."
The court wrote that they found no error in the circuit court’s reading of the deed.
"Nor do we find error in the circuit court’s interpretation of the deed which the Cofields assert, in their second assignment of error, is deficient for failure to make assumptions in favor of the Cofields and apply certain rules of construction to interpret the deed," the justices stated. "The deed required the application of no constructive rules because '[d]eed words that are not ambiguous should not be construed.'"
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number: 5:23-cv-000215
