State ex rel. Lovejoy v. Callaghan

• Decision Date: 31 October 2002
• Docket Number: No. 30670.,30670.
• Citation: 576 S.E.2d 246,213 W.Va. 1
• Parties: STATE of West Virginia ex rel. James E. LOVEJOY, Kevin G. Lovejoy, John D. Lovejoy, Ronald D. Lovejoy, Denese E. Lovejoy, Barbara Myers, Carolyn Brewster, Ronald Lovejoy, II, and Ronald G. Lovejoy, Petitioners, v. Michael O. CALLAGHAN, Secretary, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and James Martin, Chief, Office of Oil & Gas, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Respondents. Columbia Natural Resources, Inc., Intervenor.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

576 S.E.2d 246

213 W.Va. 1

STATE of West Virginia ex rel. James E. LOVEJOY, Kevin G. Lovejoy, John D. Lovejoy, Ronald D. Lovejoy, Denese E. Lovejoy, Barbara Myers, Carolyn Brewster, Ronald Lovejoy, II, and Ronald G. Lovejoy, Petitioners, v. Michael O. CALLAGHAN, Secretary, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and James Martin, Chief, Office of Oil & Gas, West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Respondents.

Columbia Natural Resources, Inc., Intervenor.

No. 30670.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted September 17, 2002.

Decided October 31, 2002.

Concurring Opinion of Justice Albright November 1, 2002.

Dissenting Opinion of Justice McGraw January 6, 2003.

John W. Barrett, Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, Charleston, West Virginia and Joe Lovett, Mountain State Justice, Inc., Lewisburg, West Virginia, Attorneys for the Petitioners.

Perry D. McDaniel, Jennifer Akers, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for the Respondents, Michael Callaghan, Secretary, James Martin, Chief, Office of Oil & Gas, and

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., Attorney General, Barbara F. Elkins, Shirley Skaggs, Assistant Attorneys General, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for the Respondent, Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Tara D. Shumate Lee, Charleston, West Virginia and Thomas R. Goodwin, Carrie Goodwin Fenwick, Goodwin & Goodwin, LLP, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for the Intervenor, Columbia Natural Resources, Inc.

George A. Patterson, III, Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love, PLLC, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorney for Amicus Curiae, The Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia.

PER CURIAM:

Petitioners, who are individuals owning the surface rights in a tract of land situated in Lincoln County, West Virginia, seek a writ of mandamus to compel compliance by the governmental Respondents¹ charged with enforcing certain statutes which pertain to oil and gas well drilling permits. Specifically, Petitioners seek the revocation of a well permit that has already been issued and, in fact, released. As part of their request for relief, Petitioners seek to have an administrative rule that concerns the issuance of permits for deep wells declared invalid. Upon a full review of the issues presented, we determine that Petitioners have waived their rights of appeal relative to the permit issuance underlying this matter and further that Petitioners have failed to demonstrate their entitlement to a writ of mandamus. Accordingly, Petitioners' request for a writ of mandamus is hereby denied.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

On April 17, 2000, Columbia² applied to the West Virginia Department of Energy, Division of Oil and Gas (hereinafter referred to as "Office of Oil and Gas") to obtain a well work permit in connection with its plan to drill a deep test well,³ which is referred to under the applicable statute as a "discovery deep well,"⁴ on Petitioners' property. W.Va. Code § 22C-9-7(a)(1) (1998) (Repl.Vol.2002). Columbia only obtained permission from two of the surface owners. One of the non-consenting land owners, Denese Lovejoy,⁵ contacted the Office of Oil and Gas to express her opposition to the issuance of a well permit. On May 5, 2000, the Office of Oil and Gas issued a well work permit to Columbia for the purpose of drilling a discovery deep well⁶ on Petitioners' property. Petitioners took no timely action to have the permit issuance reviewed⁷ or to stop the drilling process.

The discovery well at issue was drilled sometime between May 17, 2000, and August 23, 2000. After completing the drilling process, Columbia reclaimed the property.⁸ On April 29, 2002, the Office of Oil and Gas issued a release of the well work permit at issue after a final inspection to assure that Columbia had met all of its regulatory obligations to reclaim Petitioners' property in connection with the resulting disturbance occasioned by the well drilling.

On May 2, 2002, Petitioners filed a civil action in the Circuit Court of Lincoln County, West Virginia, against Columbia and the contracting company employed by Columbia wherein they assert various statutory⁹ and common law claims arising out of the drilling of the discovery well at issue. Petitioners filed their action with this Court on May 16, 2002, seeking, through an original proceeding in mandamus, revocation of the deep well work permit and declaration of the invalidity of an administrative rule¹⁰ for failure to comply with the rule making provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act. See W.Va. Code §§ 29A-3-1 to -18 (1988) (Repl.Vol. 1998 & Supp.2002).

This Court issued a rule to show cause on June 25, 2002, and ordered the West Virginia Oil and Gas Commission ("Commission") to participate in the proceeding due to its drafting of the administrative rule, the validity of which is challenged by Petitioners.¹¹ The Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia was granted permission to participate in this original proceeding as an amicus curiae.

II. Standard of Review

Our three-prong standard for the issuance of a writ of mandamus is well-ensconced in the law:

A writ of mandamus will not issue unless three elements coexist—(1) a clear legal right in the petitioner to the relief sought; (2) a legal duty on the part of respondent to do the thing which the petitioner seeks to compel; and (3) the absence of another adequate remedy.

Syl. Pt. 2, State ex rel. Kucera v. City of Wheeling, 153 W.Va. 538, 170 S.E.2d 367 (1969). We proceed to determine whether Petitioners can meet this standard.

III. Discussion

Given the extraordinary relief nature of this proceeding, Petitioners are required to demonstrate a clear right to the relief sought; a legal duty on the part of the respondent to perform the act at issue; and the absence of an available and adequate remedy. See Kucera, 153 W.Va. at 539, 170 S.E.2d at 367, syl. pt. 2. We further recognized in Kucera that "[p]etitioners in mandamus must have a clear legal right to the relief sought therein and such right cannot be established in the proceeding itself." Id. at syl. pt. 1, 170 S.E.2d 367.

At the center of the relief sought by Petitioners is a statutory provision located in the article of the West Virginia Code addressing Oil and Gas Conservation. See W.Va.Code §§ 22C-9-1 to -16 (1994) (Repl.Vol.2002). This provision, known as the "consent and easement" provision, provides that:

No drilling or operation of a deep well for the production of oil or gas shall be permitted upon or within any tract of land unless the operator shall have first obtained the written consent and easement therefor, duly acknowledged and placed on record in the office of the county clerk, for valuable consideration of all owners of the surface of such tract of land, which consent shall describe with reasonable certainty, the location upon such tract, of the location of such proposed deep well, a certified copy of which consent and easement shall be submitted by the operator to the commission.

W.Va.Code § 22C-9-7(b)(4). We identify the "consent and easement" provision as necessary background to this matter and its correlation to the administrative rule which Petitioners challenge,¹² preferring to leave for another day a full discussion of this provision and its application.

A. Permit Revocation

Before we address the issue of the rule challenge, however, we discuss the central issue in this extraordinary relief proceeding—the revocation of the working well permit. We note initially that there is no procedure, codified or otherwise, that addresses the permit revocation sought by Petitioners.¹³ Most important, however, to the resolution of this matter is Petitioners' complete failure to avail themselves of the remedies supplied by law in connection with the issuance of the well permit. The provisions of West Virginia Code § 22-6-41 provide that:

Any party to the proceedings under section sixteen [§ 22-6-16] of this article adversely affected by the order of issuance of a drilling permit or to the issuance of a fracturing permit or the refusal of the director to grant a drilling permit or fracturing permit is entitled to judicial review thereof. All of the pertinent provisions of section four [§ 29A-5-4], article five, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code shall apply to and govern such judicial review with like effect as if the provisions of section four were set forth in extenso in this section.

The judgment of the circuit court shall be final unless reversed, vacated or modified on appeal to the supreme court of appeals in accordance with the provisions of section one [§ 29A-6-1], article six, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code.

Pursuant to the authority provided by West Virginia Code § 22-6-41, which grants an administrative right of appeal in connection with the issuance of drilling permits, Petitioners had a clear right to appeal the decision to issue the working well permit.¹⁴ Under the provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act, this appeal was required to be filed within thirty days of the issuance of the agency's decision to issue the well permit. See W.Va.Code § 29A-5-4. No such appeal was taken by Petitioners. Not until more than two years later did Petitioners take any action relative to the issuance of the drilling permit.

In failing to take a direct appeal from the issuance of the drilling permit, Petitioners have violated a basic tenet of administrative law.

"The general rule is that where an administrative remedy is provided by statute or by rules and regulations having the force and effect of law, relief must be sought from the administrative body, and such remedy must be exhausted before the courts will act." Pt. 1, syllabus, Daurelle v. Traders Fed. Savings & Loan Association of Parkersburg, 143 W.Va. 674, [104 S.E.2d 320 (1958)].

Syl. Pt. 2, Bank of Wheeling v....