Hite v. Falcon Partners: A Model Rule for Marcellus and Utica Shale States Precluding the Use of Delay Rental Payments to Extend the Primary Term in an Oil and Gas Lease

This Note will focus on the law of four states: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The Background section of this note will give a description of the developments in these states that have rejuvenated the relevance of the interpretation of oil and gas leases in this region and explain why this is an important area of the law today. This section will also reveal the state of the laws regarding delay rental payments. States in this group are organized according to their treatment of the issue at hand. First, New York presents the strongest precedent upholding the extension of an oil and gas lease through delay rental payments. Ohio law provides that a lease terminates at the end of the primary term when no well is producing, even if delay rentals continue. West Virginia represents a state that is yet to definitively dispose of the issue. The Background will conclude with a brief review of the nature of the habendum clause of a lease, which is typically the relevant part of a lease regarding this issue. The next section, the Statement of the Case, will include a synopsis of the facts that led to Falcon. Although the court’s reasoning will be more extensively examined in the Analysis section, the Statement of the Case will briefly provide the bases of the court’s decision. The Analysis will be broken down into five main arguments in support of a uniform law regarding delay rental provisions in leases in this area. First, this section will demonstrate the importance of the development of a uniform law in this region. The next part of the Analysis shows why the very nature of the property right transferred in an oil and gas lease disfavors the extension of the term by delay rental payments. The third part will deal with the policy reasons for refusing to allow delay rentals to extend a lease beyond its primary term. These include recognition in each of these states of an implied or express covenant of development in oil and gas leases and public policy concerns with finding the most profitable use for property. Finally, this policy argument will conclude with an analysis of the alternatives available to the oil and gas lessee and why these alternatives further prove that Falcon presents the best model law concerning delay rental

Adam Smith and the Problem of Parochialism: Can the Impartial Spectator Engage in Social Critique?

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), Adam Smith offers an account of moral judgment centered around impartial spectatorship and the human conscience. For Smith, it is our consciences (in the form of imaginary impartial spectators) that we turn to when making moral judgments. However, some philosophers argue that our consciences make for poor judges of morality. Our consciences are shaped by socialization, and insofar as we socialize with biased and prejudiced people, our consciences may be similarly biased and prejudiced. I will argue that Smith’s account of the human conscience is not nearly as vulnerable to this problem as one might initially think. Because our consciences are influenced by socialization—including socialization with outsiders—we can revise our moral judgments in ways that allow us to overcome our parochial biases and prejudices

Digital Television: Has the Revolution Stalled?

When digital television technology first hit the scene it garnered great excitement, with its promise of movie theater picture and sound on a fraction of the bandwidth of analog. A plan was implemented to transition from the current analog broadcasting system to a digital system effective December 23, 2006. As we reach the half point of this plan, the furor begins to die as the realities of the difficult change sink in

Deutsche Telekom and Voicestream Merger: Charting a New Regulatory Course

On July 24, 2000, the German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom AG (Deutche Telekom) agreed to purchase the Bellvue, Washington based VoiceStream Wireless Corporation (VoiceStream) for over $50 billion. Although the merger may ultimately fall through, the response generated by the proposed merger indicates the future for deals between US and foreign-owned telecommunications companies. With the increasing globalization of the world\u27s telecommunications markets, the Deutche Telekom deal represents the first time that a company dominated by a foreign government has attempted to purchase an American corporation. The signatories of the Basic Telecommunications Agreement, an agreement among World Trade Organization (WTO) members to open their telecom markets to foreign competition, are closely watching the US response. The stance that the US government takes in reviewing this merger can be seen as a sign of things to come as the world\u27s single largest telecommunications market opens up to the world

Code-Switching and Sentence Imitation by African-American Students

he purpose of the present study was to identify the accuracy of sentence imitation and code-switching by the African-American child between the ages of 6 years O months and 7 years 2 months. Despite well documented descriptions of Black English (BE) phonology (Dillard, 1972; Labov, 1972; Wolfram & Fasold, 1974), little has been published about the emerging phonology of BE speaking children. Most descriptive studies of BE have focused on the adult system. The present study investigated the following research questions, Will African-American children in this study, when presented with the task of imitating BE and IE sentences, code-switch each with equal frequency? and Will African-American students in this study, when presented with an imitation task using BE and IE sentences, imitate each with an equal rate of accuracy? The results of this study suggest that African-American children are bilingual, code-switching and sentence imitation were observed in the subjects when presented with stimulus sentences. The study also suggests that African-American students speak IE while at the same time not denying the use of their BE under the appropriate circumstances

Monitored Steady State Excitation and Recovery (MSSER) radiation force imaging of engineered tissue constructs

Production of engineered bone tissue requires integration of synthetic and natural materials and ideal chemical and mechanical stimulation. More understanding of changes in mechanical properties of these tissues during differentiation is needed. Current tensile testing methods result in destruction of tissue constructs. A non-destructive testing method is desired. Monitor Steady State Excitation and Recovery, MSSER, an ultrasound imaging based elastography method, uses prolonged acoustic force to displace tissue while monitoring changes in strain during force application. MSSER, along with the underdamped harmonic oscillation model, was used to determine the elastic modulus of tissue constructs. Localized elastic modulus values were calculated using MSSER for tissue constructs grown in osteogenic and complete (non-osteogenic) growth media. Images showing elastic modulus values were produced. Validation of elastic modulus images were done performing calcium digestion on tissue constructs. MSSER hopes to provide a non-invasive testing method, allow for localized measurements, and aid in calcium detection