HARRISBURG - The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a preliminary injunction for Chevron Appalachia LLC on Feb. 8 that allows it to use lessors’ land to develop oil and gas entities.
The appeals court backed the Court of Common Pleas of Fayette County’s decision, which sided with Chevron and against James E. Porter Jr. and his wife, Mary Porter, in their case against the oil company.
The Porters own 76 acres of land in Lucerne Township, Fayette County, including land subject to an oil and gas lease that they agreed to with Chevron's predecessor, Atlas America Inc., on Oct. 20, 2002.
Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Anne E. Lazarus
| pacourts.us
Judge Anne Lazarus wrote the opinion and judges John T. Bender and John L. Musmanno concurred.
The Porters took legal action after Chevron notified them it planned to develop and build unconventional wells on the land. The Porters then sued, requesting the court declare Chevron couln’t use the land via preliminary and permanent injunctions, and Chevron filed its own request for injunction that would block the Porters from preventing access to the land.
The lower court ruled in favor of Chevron, and the Superior Court affirmed.
“We find the record contains reasonable grounds for the court to conclude that Chevron would suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction,” Lazarus wrote. “The Porters’ actions deprived Chevron of contractual rights in land pursuant to the 2002 lease, which in and of itself supports a finding of irreparable harm.”
Additionally, Chevron’s testimony proved that interfering with its access would create unnecessary delays and lead to even more unnecessary costs, the decision said.
The Superior Court also backed the lower court’s decision that whether or not Chevron used its rights via the lease before the Porters attempted to block it from the land doesn’t matter, and that an injunction against the Porters is needed to revive the status quo of the project.