pjc-oil-and-gas-2022-lib

PREFACE

This 2022 edition of Texas Pattern Jury Charges—Oil & Gas can be a tremendous asset to you and the clients you work so diligently to represent. As with the volumes before it, it is the culmination of many thousands of hours of case study and drafting work from a stellar group of lawyers who so graciously volunteer their time to assist the bar with jury charges. Our pleasure in delivering this incredible work product is darkened, however, by the loss this year of one of the founders of this project, Susan Richardson. She was a remarkable lawyer, known throughout the state for her depth of knowledge of oil and gas trial work. In the late 1990s, Susan, along with several other oil and gas legends, originated the idea of drafting pattern jury charges to serve the oil and gas bar. At that time, oil and gas litigators had to rely on their own research to write a jury charge; it nearly always had to be crafted from scratch and took days to assemble. Susan served as the first chair of a committee set on drafting pattern charges; she and a team of legends on the governing counsel of the Oil, Gas and Energy Resources Law (OGERL) Section of the State Bar prepared the first published oil and gas pattern jury charges. The committee then undertook ongoing revisions and improvements over the years. The oil and gas luminaries who contributed their intellect and time to this on going project have included (but are no means limited to) Elizabeth “Becky” Miller, Dick Watt, Jesse Pierce, Arnold “Arne” Johnson, Pat Lochridge, Allen Cummings, Jeff Hart, Rick Strange, Charles B. Harris, Judge Bob Parks, Ernie Bruche, Bob Grable, Kevin Beiter, Richard Brown, Mike McElroy, Charles Gordon, Laura Burney, and our most recent chair, Ricardo Morales. Although this project began as the brainchild of the governing counsel of OGERL, in 2013, the State Bar of Texas moved toward its own stand-alone oil and gas pattern jury charges project. Many of the members that had worked for years on OGERL’s commit tee were brought on, along with new members to help with the State Bar project. We are now on the State Bar’s fourth iteration, which continues to build on prior volumes, add ing new questions, refining old ones, and adding helpful commentary to guide both experienced and new oil and gas litigators. And like all the chairs who have come before me, I am awed by the hours spent by so many preeminent oil and gas trial lawyers and thankful to all of those who volunteered their time over the years for the benefit of other practitioners. I have big shoes to fill, but I am honored to be following in Susan’s foot steps on this journey. On behalf of the entire Committee, I want to give special recognition to Elma Garcia, our project legal editor, for her patience and grace in keeping our colorful group on course. —Lisa Vaughn, Chair

xxi