On January 11, 2023, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals conducted oral argument in a quiet title dispute between the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the Proctor Heirs Trust involving a dispute over the ownership of mineral rights and implicating Pennsylvania’s post-Revolutionary tax sale regime which dealt separately with “unseated” or wilderness acreage until 1947.  The Proctor Heirs Trust seeks to upset tax sales and chain of title to thousands of acres on the basis of a mineral reservation that occurred more than 125-years ago.

The litigation has the interest of land and mineral owners throughout the prolific Marcellus Region of Pennsylvania.  The Third Circuit granted motions by EQT AMD, EQT ARD and International Development Corporation to participate as amici curiae.  Myers, Brier & Kelly and Kirkland and Ellis represent the EQT amici, and Jack Dempsey presented the oral argument on their behalf.  [Third Circuit Oral Argument – January 11, 2023].  The Third Circuit has the matter under advisement.