{"id":10683,"date":"2025-06-24T12:18:16","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/10683\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:18:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:18:16","slug":"dallas-based-pony-oil-says-pioneer-fabricated-basis-of-534-million-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/10683\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas-based Pony Oil says Pioneer \u2018fabricated\u2019 basis of $534 million suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

BIG SPRING \u2014 During a daylong hearing in Martin County on Friday, a judge was told Pioneer Natural Resources<\/a> had \u201cfabricated\u201d the basis for its lawsuit seeking $534 million in damages from a smaller competitor that it accused of interfering with its West Texas leases. <\/p>\n

Pioneer, which was acquired last year by Houston energy giant ExxonMobil<\/a>, filed suit against Pony Oil in 2021. The company alleges Pony caused it $178 million in actual damages by signing so-called top leases on Pioneer\u2019s acreage that prevented it from drilling 11 planned wells. A top lease is a contract signed on land already under lease that will take effect in the future if a bottom lease already in place on a property expires. <\/p>\n

Pioneer had asked the court to triple its actual damages based on Pony\u2019s alleged tortious interference with its leases, which the company claimed caused it to abandon plans to drill. But in its most recent filings with the court, Pioneer has drastically scaled back its damages request, seeking only $19 million in damages for the delay it suffered in drilling nine of the 11 wells, allegedly because of Pony\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n

Founded by Dallas resident and former Bachelorette contestant John Paul Merritt<\/a>, Pony contends its taking of top leases is \u201clegal and commonplace in Texas oil and gas\u201d but that the practice irked Pioneer. In a motion asking Judge Shane R. Seaton to hit Pioneer with death-penalty sanctions, dismiss the case and award it about $2 million in attorney fees, Pony said Pioneer \u201cbuilt a fabricated narrative\u201d and sued Pony to \u201cmake an example\u201d of the company. <\/p>\n

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Pioneer has called the request for sanctions and dismissal \u201cbaseless\u201d and said Pony\u2019s allegations are sanctionable on their own. <\/p>\n

Pony filed the motion seeking those extreme remedies after receiving in discovery a document called a rig schedule, which Pony claims proves Pioneer\u2019s case is a sham. <\/p>\n

The rig schedule, Pony claims, shows that Pioneer\u2019s decision not to drill those wells had nothing to do with Pony\u2019s actions. <\/p>\n

In a response to that motion Pioneer filed with the court Thursday, the company called Pony\u2019s request for sanctions and dismissal \u201cbaseless.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is at least the seventh time defendants have tried to convince the Court to dismiss Pioneer\u2019s affirmative claim for tortious interference,\u201d Pioneer wrote. \u201cDefendants\u2019 latest attempt is so devoid of any basis in fact or law that it is itself sanctionable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pioneer told the court Pony is mistaken about the significance of the rig schedule and its impact on the claims in this case. <\/p>\n

The lead attorney for Pony, Rob Vartabedian of Dallas\/Fort Worth-based Vartabedian Hester & Haynes, arrived at the small 118th District Court building with a team of six people. Pioneer\u2019s lawyer, Corey Wehmeyer of San Antonio-based Santoyo Wehmeyer, had two attorneys with him. The gallery was empty. <\/p>\n

Vartabedian argued that Pioneer lied about why it removed the 11 wells from the rig schedule and about when it discovered the top leases. <\/p>\n

The rig schedule shows drilling of the wells stopped in July 2020, which Vartabedian said was \u201chappening all over the industry\u201d at the time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n

Pioneer began drilling in nine of the wells in 2021. <\/p>\n

At one point during his presentation, Vartabedian displayed a photo of NBA players and told the court Pioneer had \u201cflopped\u201d in claiming Pony\u2019s actions harmed the company. Pioneer was only pretending to be injured, he argued. <\/p>\n

Vartabedian told the court he doesn\u2019t like to pursue sanctions but feels it is needed in this case, in part to reimburse Pony \u201cfor the work it had to put in to defend claims of Pioneer.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way this is going to stop unless the court makes this stop,\u201d Vartabedian said. <\/p>\n

Wehmeyer sat in the courtroom for the two hours Vartabedian presented, shaking his head often. When it was his turn to speak, he said calling Pioneer\u2019s claimed injuries a \u201cflop\u201d was a \u201cfarce.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wehmeyer addressed Pony\u2019s claims of perjury and stated that if Vartabedian did not believe Pioneer\u2019s in-house legal counsel, Barry Thomson \u2014 who said in an affidavit the wells were removed from the drilling schedule in September 2020 after learning of the top leases \u2014 he should have filed a disciplinary action with the state bar. <\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen him turn him into the state bar if he honestly believed this, I think he has a duty to do that,\u201d Wehmeyer said. <\/p>\n

The hearing concluded Friday without a ruling from the judge.<\/p>\n

The Texas Lawbook is an online news publication focused on business law in Texas. For more on this and other legal news, visit texaslawbook.net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIG SPRING \u2014 During a daylong hearing in Martin County on Friday, a judge was told Pioneer Natural…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,356,1596,5495,358,11577,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-10683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-the-texas-lawbook","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}