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Fed Judge Reverses Class Action in PA Landowner Lawsuit v. Shell
A notable development in a lawsuit that before now, we were unaware of. Several landowners in Venango County (northwest PA) filed a lawsuit against Shell’s SWEPI drilling subsidiary in 2013 claiming SWEPI had stiffed them out of lease bonus payments due under duly signed lease contracts. The landowners attempted to turn the lawsuit into a class action, claiming the same thing had happened for about 300 leases in the area. A federal judge has just ruled against converting the lawsuit into a class action.
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A second lawsuit we’re reporting on today that had previously slipped by our usually good radar. A former Cabot Oil & Gas employee filed a lawsuit in October 2017 alleging that he and a number of other “employees” had been stiffed out of overtime payments by Cabot–that Cabot had treated them as independent contractors rather than as employees. The lawsuit was granted class certification.
Pennsylvania towns that pass sketchy local ordinances that skirt state laws are on notice: It’s going to cost you. Big. For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, PA that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. The ordinance was tossed by a judge, and now the town will have to pay $102,000 in legal fees incurred by the operator.
This stuff makes us angry. Just yesterday we told you about a contractor using the sleazy tactic of filing “mechanic’s liens” against landowners in western New York State because of a payment dispute with the company building a wind farm on their property (see 
Last December a federal judge in New Jersey upheld eminent domain power for PennEast Pipeline for ALL of NJ, where there are 136 holdout landowners who have refused to allow PennEast surveyors on their property (see 
In February MDN told you about an important decision by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that has the potential to override New York State and allow both the Constitution Pipeline and Northern Access Pipeline projects to get built (see 
In Nov. 2017 the Ohio Attorney General’s office under then-AG Mike Dewine (RINO swamp dweller, now governor) sued Energy Transfer at the prompting of the Ohio EPA claiming the company’s Rover Pipeline project was guilty of “polluting state waters while constructing a natural gas pipeline across Ohio” (see 
A group of Pennsylvania landowners from Lancaster County are begging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case in which they say they’ve been screwed over by Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline.
‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.’ – George Santayana. Here’s a bit of history you may not know: In 1212 thousands of Catholic kids from France and Germany took off to “liberate” Jerusalem from Muslims, part of the Crusades. None made it. They either died along the way or were sold into slavery. Is history repeating itself? A group of kids are today “battling” so-called “climate change” (modern day Crusade), and they’re being used by adults to do so.
A West Virginia Circuit Court case in September 2017, Crowder and Wentz v EQT, found in favor of surface landowners ruling that EQT did not have the right to extend underground shale wells to adjacent properties where EQT also owned the mineral rights (see 
Big Green groups are asking the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a case it recently decided that says when the federal Clean Water Act gives states one year to review requests for 401 water crossing permits, they have one year (365 days)–not two or three years by gaming the system (see 
In early 2018, the federal EPA approved a new Marcellus wastewater injection well for the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum Borough (see