Drilling Title Opinions on Dormant, Stale, and Double-Fraction Mineral Interests: Requirements Through Quiet Title

Matthew W. Onest, Chairman KWGD’s Oil & Gas Practice Group | Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty Co., L.P.A

Matthew W. Onest brings and defends lawsuits under the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act and the Ohio Marketable Title Act, together with declaratory judgment, slander of title, and adverse possession claims and disputes over the breach, interpretation, and enforcement of oil and gas leases. He chairs the oil and gas practice group at Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty Co., L.P.A. (KWGD), which he joined in 2012, and he has handled appeals before the Ohio Supreme Court and Ohio’s Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh, and Twelfth District Courts of Appeal.

• Education & Credentials

He received his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the University of Akron School of Law, where he served as an assistant editor of the Akron Law Review and earned CALI awards for academic excellence in Bankruptcy, Evidence, and Health Law, the ABA-BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Health Law, and The American Bankruptcy Law Journal Student Prize. He holds a B.A. in Sociology and Criminal Justice, cum laude, from the University of Mount Union, where he received the William H. Porter Award in Sociology and a Board of Trustees Scholarship. He is licensed in Ohio and admitted to the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio.

• Recognition & Leadership

The Best Lawyers in America® named him Lawyer of the Year for 2027, and he has been listed in Best Lawyers in America® from 2025 to the present, after recognition as one of its “Ones To Watch” in 2021 and 2022. Within KWGD, he leads the oil and gas practice group and is a member of the litigation and appellate practice group.

• Professional Involvement

He has written on the Ohio Supreme Court’s holding that the Ohio Marketable Title Act applies to all severed mineral interests, issued a legal alert on the Peppertree MTA case, and analyzed Ohio House Bill No. 152 and the state’s oil and gas unitization process. From 2018 through 2020 he co-authored the Ohio survey on oil and gas for the Texas A&M Journal of Property Law. His presentations include “Preserving Severed Mineral Interests” for the Stark County Bar Association (2014), the “2015 Oil and Gas Caselaw Update” for the Ohio Bar Association, and “Defining Trespass and Adverse Possession and Accommodating the Rights of Mineral Owners and Surface Owners” for Half Moon Education, Inc. (2018), along with programs on easements, condemnation, and landlord-tenant law.

He is a member of the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation, the National Association of Royalty Owners, and the Ohio State, Stark County, Akron, and Trumbull County Bar Associations. He serves on the board of the Spano Foundation and is a member of The Hubbard Rotary Club.

• Experience

His oil and gas work includes counseling producers and drillers and litigating on their behalf in Ohio state and federal courts, and representing companies and landowners in civil litigation, arbitration, and administrative proceedings before the Public Utilities Commission and the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission. He also negotiates oil and gas leases, easements, and other energy-related agreements.

Beyond energy matters, he handles complex business and tort litigation, real estate litigation, commercial arbitration, and appellate work, and he practices in several federal courts across the United States. He works from KWGD’s Canfield and Canton offices.

Wayne A. Boyer, Director | Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty Co., L.P.A.

Wayne A. Boyer advises energy producers and other clients on mineral and lease acquisitions and divestitures, the due diligence behind them, and the title and lease disputes that arise from Utica

Shale activity in Ohio. He is a Director of Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty Co., L.P.A. (KWGD) and Secretary of Alpha Land Title Agency, Inc., the firm’s title company, where he assists with drafting title commitments and curing title defects. Before joining KWGD, he served as a project manager and in-house counsel for an oil and gas firm overseeing projects in the Appalachian Land Basin.

• Education & Credentials

He earned his Juris Doctorate, magna cum laude, from the University of Akron School of Law in 2011 and his B.A. in Criminology, cum laude, from The Ohio State University in 2007. He was admitted to practice in Ohio in 2011.

• Recognition & Leadership

He is listed in Best Lawyers in America® for 2026 and 2027, following recognition in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America from 2022 through 2025. In addition to his role as a KWGD Director and Secretary of Alpha Land Title Agency, Inc., he sits on the Stark County Bar Association Grievance Committee.

• Professional Involvement

His published articles address a Fifth District Court of Appeals decision on the “reasonable search” required in abandonment procedures under the Dormant Mineral Act, a Seventh District Court of Appeals holding that a surface owner’s attempts to locate the heirs of a mineral holder were inadequate, the persuasive force of the Duhig Rule in interpreting oil and gas reservations, and Blackstone v. Moore. He has also contributed to the firm’s Utica Shale & Pipeline newsletter (November 2020) and its Utica Shale & Pipeline Update and Review (May 2026).

He is a member of the Stark County Bar Association, the Ohio State Bar Association, and the Building Industry of Stark County (BIA). He serves on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Children’s Network and is a former board member of the Stark County YMCA.

• Experience

His oil and gas practice covers transactional work tied to the Utica Shale play, due diligence for mineral and lease acquisitions, and the resolution of oil and gas contract, title, and lease disputes, including through litigation. Through Alpha Land Title Agency, he supports residential and commercial closings, drafting title commitments and curing title defects.

His broader real estate practice includes negotiating and drafting deeds, leases, mortgages, and purchase agreements and reviewing zoning and land use codes, along with municipal law matters.

SESSION 1 – Writing Drilling Title Requirements for Abandoned Minerals and Double-Fraction Royalty Reservations | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This advanced session works through a composite horizontal unit with tracts in Ohio. For each severed interest, the panel decides whether to credit a dormant-mineral abandonment, a marketable-title extinguishment, or a fixed royalty fraction, or instead to write a requirement or an advisory. Speakers will grade thin notice, publication, and savings-event records against Fonzi (2022-Ohio-901), and apply Mineral Development Inc. v. SWN Production Co. (2023-Ohio-4749) to double-fraction deeds. Speaker will also discuss the standing issues for purported successees to abandoned mineral interests raised by Cardinal Minerals, LLC v. Miller (2024-Ohio-2133) and 1803 Resources, LLC v. Lineback (2025-Ohio-3271). Attendees will leave with a credit/require/advise decision tree, and the judgment layer rarely written down: how experienced examiners in Appalachia actually weigh curative risk.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – From Title Requirement to Judgment: Mineral Curative and Quiet Title That Survives Appeal | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session follows problem mineral tracts from drilling-opinion requirement to curative instrument or final judgment: an Ohio severed interest with a marginal notation of abandonment of record and a disputed root of title, or other MTA issues, and separately fraction interpretation issues. Drawing on Duhig, Gerrity, Fonzi, Cardinal Minerals, and Crozier, and other Ohio cases, the presentation will work through the process of preparing for quiet title litigation to cure title to the minerals, from both the surface owner’s and mineral owner’s perspective and then carrying that process through the litigation process, including appeals. Attendees will leave with a stipulation/ratification/quiet-title decision tree and an annotated checklist for the abandonment and quiet-title record, organized around what a quiet-title litigator needs the drilling opinion to have said before the case is filed and what to expect during the litigation.