## Facts

- A landowner (Brown) leased land to Westmoreland & Cambria Natural Gas Company for oil and gas development, and the company entered and spent substantial sums developing gas operations.
- The lease included a restriction that no wells were to be drilled within 300 yards of buildings on the tract.
- Brown later granted a second lease to De Witt and others covering part of the same general tract, and the later lessees planned to drill a new gas well.
- The gas company alleged the proposed well would be on its leasehold and would quickly drain gas, causing waste and irreparable injury before legal rights could be finally adjudicated.
- The later lessees disputed that the well site was within the earlier lease and asserted the earlier lease had been forfeited for nonpayment.

## Issues

1. What property interest, if any, does a landowner have in natural gas in place, and who owns gas that migrates and is produced by a lawful well on another tract?
2. Whether the proposed well was located on land covered by the gas company’s earlier lease.
3. Whether the gas company’s lease had been forfeited for nonpayment, including whether the lessor waived strict performance and tender requirements.
4. Whether equity should grant injunctive relief to prevent threatened drainage and waste pending adjudication of the parties’ rights.

## Decision

- The court held that natural gas is part of the land while it remains under the landowner’s control, but because of its migratory character, title is lost once gas escapes or comes under another’s control.
- The court applied the rule of capture: gas produced by a lawful well on one’s own land belongs to the well owner even if it migrated from neighboring land.
- The court construed the 300-yard “no wells” clause as a release by the lessor of any right to lease the restricted area to others for drilling that would defeat the original grant.
- The court held the asserted forfeiture for nonpayment was not enforceable in equity where the parties’ conduct showed waiver of strict compliance and the lessor’s statements could make formal tender unnecessary.
- The court reversed the refusal to maintain injunctive protection and directed that injunctive relief issue to restrain the competing drilling.

## Legal Principles

- Natural gas in place is owned as part of the realty only so long as it remains under the landowner’s control; once it migrates and is reduced to possession on another tract, the original owner’s title is extinguished.
- Under the rule of capture, a party who lawfully drills on its own land acquires title to gas produced, even if the gas migrated from neighboring property.
- A lease restriction barring drilling within a specified area may operate as a waiver by the lessor of the right to authorize competing drilling within that area where such authorization would impair the lessee’s granted rights.
- Forfeiture provisions and tender formalities may be waived by the lessor’s conduct, including acceptance of nonconforming performance or statements indicating tender would be useless.
- Equity may enjoin threatened drilling where rapid drainage and waste would cause irreparable injury and legal remedies would be inadequate, particularly when the plaintiff shows a valid, subsisting lease and substantial reliance expenditures.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed that natural gas is subject to the rule of capture and held that, because the gas company’s lease remained effective and competing drilling threatened rapid, irreparable drainage, equity should restrain the later lessees from drilling in a manner that would impair the earlier leasehold rights.


Westmoreland & Cambria Nat. Gas Co. v. De Witt, 130 Pa. 235, 18 A. 724 (Pa. 1889)