In Wendt v. Dickerson (October 16, 2014), the Fifth District Court of Appeals ruled on the self-executing nature of the 1989 DMA. The court held that the 1989 DMA is self-executing and operated to abandon a mineral interest reserved in 1952 where no savings events occurred within the twenty years preceding the enactment of the 1989 DMA.
The court found that “we are inclined to follow the persuasive authority of our colleagues in the Seventh District Court of Appeals to find the trial court correctly determined that the 1989 DMA applied and under the language of the 1989 DMA, the mineral rights automatically vested with the surface owners on March 22, 1992.” The court also found the 1989 DMA constitutional.
Wendt is the first (post-2006) Ohio appellate decision addressing the 1989 DMA outside of the Seventh District. Read the full decision here.