United States Tenth Circuit

Oil company was not entitled to patents on four oil mining claims under the savings clause of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, where it failed to perform any assessment work on the claims for 46 years, and the U.S. is instead the beneficiary of those claims.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/31/2002
• Published 05/31/2002

Judges

• ALDISERT, Circuit Judge., Before TACHA, Chief Judge, and ALDISERT  and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• James A. Clark of Baker & Hostetler LLP, Denver, CO, for amicus ExxonMobil Corporation;  and Donald L. Morgan of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Washington, DC, for amici Crippled Horse Investments, LP, Estate of Frederick H. Larson, and Phillips 66 Company, filed an amici curiae brief.


• For Appellees:
  
• Lisa E. Jones, Attorney, (Gary B. Randall, Attorney, and Katherine W. Hazard, Attorney, Environment & Natural Resources Div., Department of Justice, Washington DC;  John Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Washington, DC;  Paul M. Warner, United States Attorney and Jeffrey E. Nelson, Assistant United States Attorney, Salt Lake City, UT;  Karen Hawbecker and David K. Grayson, Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC, with her on the briefs) for Defendants-Appellants., Robert G. Pruitt, Jr., (Michael S. Johnson and Shawn T. Welch, with him on the brief) Pruitt, Gushee & Bachtell, 1850 Beneficial Life Tower, Salt Lake City, UT, for Plaintiff-Appellee.