Eastland Court Bars Lessor Self-Help on Pipeline Burial Disputes, Reverses $30,000 Damage Award

The Eastland Court of Appeals reversed a $30,000 award to a successor lessor who hired a third party to bury over 10,000 feet of above-ground flow lines after the lessee delayed compliance with the lease's "bury below plow depth" provision, holding that self-help abatement was unavailable where suit had been pending for over two years and legal remedies remained available. The court rejected the lessor's argument that the lease's sixty-day notice provision established an exclusive remedy precluding judicial enforcement of the burial obligation.