Below are links to the documents in the Commonwealth Court case related to Pennsylvania’s first case of Forced Pooling for Unconventional Oil & Gas under the Oil & Gas Conservation Law (originally passed in 1961). NOTE: This is an entirely unofficial repository. I am making every effort to keep it up to date and complete, but there are likely to be some delays in the appearance here of some documents.

This is the 3rd “branch” of this case. Hilcorp’s original application for Well Spacing Units under the Oil & Gas Conservation Law was submitted to the DEP. The application was returned by DEP with the claim that DEP lacked jurisdiction and the application should be filed with the Environmental Hearing Board, where the 1st “branch” of this case was captioned Environmental Hearing Board Docket 2013155. That docket has been closed, and in its concluding order the EHB directed that DEP does indeed have jurisdiction, and the case should be refiled with DEP. Hilcorp refiled with the DEP, where the case is being heard as DEP Docket # 2013-1; that proceeding is the 2nd “branch” of this case. The petitioners in the case below seek to stay the DEP proceedings and have the Oil & Gas Conservation Law declared unconstitutional.

DOCKET SHEET: The current version of the Docket Sheet for this case is available here:

<http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/AppellateCourtReport.ashx?docketNumber=266+MD+2014>

(Note that this link causes a “live reprint” of the docket sheet which is date and time stamped based on when you click the link. That means you are likely to get a “different” version of the docket sheet every time you click the link, even if there have been no real changes since your previous click.)

For Commonwealth Court, the docket sheet does seem to contain the judge’s orders, but not links to actual filings.

DOCUMENTS:

<2014_05_02_Petition for Review-Email.pdf> Petition for Review in the Nature of a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief

<2014_05_02_Petition%20Exhibits-Email.pdf> Exhibits for the filing above.

<2014_05_20_Preliminary%20Objections.pdf> Preliminary Objections to Petition for Review in the Nature of a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief

<2014_06_05_Amended%20Petition.pdf> Amended Petition for Review in the Nature of a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief

<2014_06_06_Order%20Filed.pdf> Order

<2014_06_18_Preliminary%20Objections.pdf> Preliminary Objections to Amended Petition for Review in the Nature of a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief

<2014_06_18_Memorandum%20of%20Law%20Filed.pdf> Memorandum in Support of Preliminary Objections to Amended Petition for Review in the Nature of a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and Injunctive Relief

<2014_07_08_Application%20for%20Extension%20of%20Time%20to%20File.pdf> Application in the Form of a Motion for an Enlargement of Time to File Responsive Pleading

<2014_07_18_Answer%20to%20Preliminary%20Objections.pdf> Answer to Preliminary Objections

<2014_07_18_Amicus%20Curiae%20Brief.pdf> Brief of Amici Curiae Delaware Riverkeeper, Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Mountain Watershed Association, in Opposition to Respondents’ Preliminary Objections

<2014_08_13_Commonwealth%20Preliminary%20Objections.pdf> Commonwealth Respondents’ Preliminary Objections to the Amended Petition for Review

<2014_08_13_Commonwealth%20Brief%20in%20support%20of%20POs.pdf> Brief in Support of Commonwealth Respondents’ Preliminary Objections to the Amended Petition for Review

Order (from the Docket Sheet)