§ 65.012.Operation of Well or Mine

A restriction rather than a grant, and it makes an injunction against production close to unavailable.

A court may issue an injunction or restraining order prohibiting subsurface drilling or mining operations only if an adjacent landowner claims that a wrongful act caused injury to his surface or improvements or loss of or injury to his minerals, and the party against whom the injunction is sought is unable to respond in damages.

The second condition is the one that matters. A solvent operator cannot be enjoined at all under this section, however well founded the complaint — the remedy is damages.

That reverses the ordinary equitable analysis. Normally a claimant must show damages are inadequate; here an injunction is available only where the defendant cannot pay them.

The standing limit is narrow too: an adjacent landowner, complaining of injury to surface, improvements, or minerals.

The policy is not concealed. Stopping production is enormously costly, wells and mines cannot be paused and restarted, and the state’s interest in mineral development weighs against injunctive relief.

Where an injunction is sought, the operator must post a bond in an amount the court fixes, to secure payment of any injuries the complainant may sustain.

Notice who posts it: the party against whom the injunction is sought. That inverts the usual arrangement, in which an applicant bonds against wrongfully restraining the defendant.

The bond here secures the complainant against continued operations, which is the harm that follows from not enjoining.

Instead of a bond the court may appoint a trustee or receiver to take charge of the minerals produced or the proceeds, subject to the final disposition of the litigation — securing the value in kind rather than by undertaking.