## Facts

- Multiple lessors, including Agnes Landreneau Fontenot and members of the Landreneau family, executed a single oil, gas, and mineral lease to Humble Oil & Refining Company covering three described tracts.
- The lease treated the tracts collectively, stating acreage for each tract but not allocating ownership by tract or creating separate lease obligations by lessor or by tract.
- Fontenot owned mineral interests in Tracts 2 and 3 and owned no interest in Tract 1; the Landreneaus owned interests including Tract 1.
- The lease had a one-year primary term and continued thereafter if drilling operations were commenced within the primary term and production obtained.
- Within the primary term, Humble drilled and obtained production on Tract 1.
- Fontenot later notified Humble by letter that she owned no interest in Tract 1 and did not intend to pool royalties with the Landreneaus.
- Humble paid royalties from Tract 1 production to the Landreneaus, not to Fontenot.
- Fontenot sued to cancel the lease as to her interests, asserting that absent drilling or production on Tracts 2 and 3 within the primary term, the lease expired as to her.

## Issues

1. Whether the lessors’ single instrument constituted a joint mineral lease as to the lessee, or separate leases severable by lessor ownership or by tract.
2. If the lease was joint, whether drilling and production on Tract 1 within the primary term maintained the lease for Fontenot’s interests in Tracts 2 and 3.
3. Whether Fontenot’s post-execution letter declining royalty pooling and disclaiming an interest in Tract 1 altered the lease’s legal effect or caused termination as to her interests.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the judgment for Humble and rejected Fontenot’s demand for cancellation.
- The court treated the lease as a single, joint lease as between the lessors and the lessee.
- Because the lease was joint, production obtained on Tract 1 within the primary term maintained the lease in force as to all leased tracts and all lessors’ interests, including Fontenot’s interests in Tracts 2 and 3.
- Fontenot’s unilateral letter did not amend the contract, did not convert the lease into separate leases, and did not provide a basis for cancellation.

## Legal Principles

- A mineral lease executed as one instrument by multiple lessors covering multiple tracts, without express segmentation or tract-by-tract maintenance provisions, is construed as a joint lease as to the lessee.
- Under a joint lease, timely drilling operations and production on any portion of the leased premises during the primary term maintain the lease as to the entire leased premises and all lessors’ interests, unless the lease provides otherwise.
- Separate ownership among lessors does not, by itself, create severable leases or impose tract-specific maintenance duties on the lessee absent contractual language to that effect.
- A unilateral post-execution communication by a lessor does not modify the lease or restrict rights fixed by the executed contract without agreement of the parties.

## Conclusion

The court refused to cancel the lease as to Fontenot’s mineral interests, holding that the parties created a single joint lease and that production obtained on one tract within the primary term kept the lease effective for all tracts and all lessors, notwithstanding Fontenot’s lack of ownership in the producing tract and her later non-pooling declaration.


Fontenot v. Humble Oil & Refin. Co., 210 So. 2d 340 (La. Ct. App. 3d Cir. 1968)