Dow Chemical Co. v. Warmack

George Rose Smith, Justice.

In 1982 the appellees, husband and wife, agreed to lease fourteen-and-a-third acres of land to the appellant for the production of salt water (brine), from which bromine is to be extracted. When the Warmacks tendered a lease, Dow refused to accept it for the asserted reason that the Warmacks had only a non-participating interest in the minerals and therefore lacked the authority to execute a lease. In what is perhaps a test case the Warmacks brought this suit to compel Dow to accept the lease. The chancellor held that J. B. Warmack, under a printed form of Royalty…