Ohio Law Confirms High ‘Bad Faith’ Bar for Mineral Trespass

Ohio just rewrote the playbook for mineral trespass litigation, and the new rules make it much tougher for landowners to hit oil and gas companies with big-ticket damages.

Tucked into House Bill 96 and now codified as Section 5303.34 of the Ohio Revised Code, the measure replaces more than a century of common-law precedent with a statutory scheme that is friendlier—some might say protective—toward operators.

At first glance, the law looks straightforward: If a producer crosses a property line without permission and extracts hydrocarbons, the default damages equal the revenue realized at the wellhead minus the cost of getting the ...