Lucia Bonsall v. Humble Oil & Refining Company

This appeal challenges the correctness of the District Court’s final judgment rejecting the Lessors’ contention that certain Louisiana oil and gas leases were forfeited by reason of nonpayment of royalties. The case turned on, and is controlled by, Louisiana legal principles. The principal question is whether the delay of some twenty months in payment of royalties by reason of the yet-unresolved controversy over the competing supremacy of an earlier voluntary unitization agreement versus a subsequent state-imposed obligatory unitization, Humble Oil & Refining Co. v. Jones, 1961, 241 La. 661,…