American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2018 - 158

ConventionCoverage: Louisiana Oil & Gas Association
nessing the impact of severe downturns
on people he knew.
Although working alongside his father
often required refering to his father as
'Don,' Gifford Briggs said, "As we make
this transition right now, I am really looking for calling you 'Dad' again, full time."

Pausing together at LOGA's 2018 annual convention, held March 7-9 in Lake Charles, La.,
are, from left, incoming Chairman Art Price with Badger Oil, new LOGA President Gifford
Briggs and outgoing Chairman Bryan Hanks of BETA Land Services.

But Briggs persisted and a handful of
supporters provided six months of funding,
Hilliard said. "Look around tonight,"
Hilliard told the audience. "It succeeded."
Briggs' work included developing an
association that drew both producer members and service and supply contractors,
Hilliard recalled. "The best thing we have
ever done is merge with drilling contractors
and supply people," he considered. "You
unified this industry in Louisiana for the
first time and I thank you for it. It has
paid off very well for all of us."
Outgoing LOGA Chairman Bryan
Hanks, president and CEO of BETA Land

Services in Lafayette, recalled the pain
of traveling to North Carolina for a
hospital visit in late 2016 after Briggs
suffered a serious head injury from falling
down a flight of stairs during a visit to
the Tar Heel State. Briggs returned to
work in October 2017.
"While you have been my boss, you
also have been my friend," Hanks said.
"Thank you for your friendship."
Gifford Briggs thanked his father for
the opportunity to serve the industry as a
part of LOGA, although the younger
Briggs admitted he had once hoped to
avoid the oil and gas industry after wit-

Concluding Remarks
At the ceremony's conclusion, Gifford
Briggs presented his father with a print
of a photograph of St. Mother Teresa of
Calcutta with a child. The picture was
taken by Baton Rouge photographer Marie
Constantin, one of two professional photographers invited by the Missionaries of
Charity to photograph Mother Teresa
while she traveled in the United States.
The photo was said to be Mother Teresa's favorite, Gifford Briggs said.
"I have been so blessed," Don Briggs
said in brief concluding remarks. "It's
like being at my wake alive. I could not
have planned it any better. I am so blessed
there are so many things I could say . . .
All I can say is that I love every one of
you guys. I do appreciate the fact that
you are here, every single person in this
room."
Constantin was visiting recently and
Don Briggs said he told her the story of
how he was passing out her book of
Mother Teresa photos shortly before his
accident.
"She said 'Don you were putting my
books out about Mother Teresa and she
is still working through you,'" he recalled.
"If you wonder what I'll be doing, that's
what I am going to be doing."
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KANSAS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
FROM PAGE 144
but the losing party opted to appeal that
decision to the Kansas Supreme Court, bypassing the more typical route through the
Court of Appeals. Schremmer says the
jump to the high court is unusual but not
unheard of. "The reason the Supreme Court
likely did that is because the justices saw
an issue that potentially is precedential and
previously undecided," he poses. "And, the
Court of Appeals decision was likely to get
appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court
anyway."
The Jason Oil lawsuit also allows the
Supreme Court to rule on an issue of
first impression, or a question of interpreting law that had never arisen in Kansas
before, he details, saying, "The justices

would be inclined to skip the Court of
Appeals in cases of first impression that
potentially are significant."
While Kansas oil and gas lawyers
have been aware of the potential implications of defeasible term mineral interest,
he says, it had never been litigated to an
appellate court level. If the Kansas
Supreme Court decides leases written
with defeasible term mineral interest provisions do violate perpetuities rules, there
will be a massive amount of litigation involving the validity of those leases, including the question of whether operators
who have paid royalties under those leases
paid them to the proper party.
The Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Asso-

158 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

ciation and the Wichita chapter of the
Association of Professional Land Men
joined KIOGA in filing amicus curie
briefs on behalf of the existing lease system, Schremmer says.
"Those groups have made public policy
related-arguments as to why it would not
be a good idea for the Kansas economy
or public policy in Kansas. Those are
somewhat broader than strictly legal arguments. So both legal and public policy
considerations will weigh in the court's
decision, but no one except the court
knows how it will weigh those factors,"
he says.
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2018

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