Appellant operator sought review of a judgment from the Superior Court of Kern County (California), which ruled that the operator breached its obligations to respondent nonoperator under an oil and gas operating agreement.
The parties entered into an oil and gas operating agreement that required the operator to provide monthly operating statements to the nonoperator. The monthly operating statements calculated the nonoperator's share of sales or production using a net revenue interest percentage. A dispute arose concerning the applicable percentage, and the nonoperator filed suit for breach of contract. The operator argued that the action was time-barred under caljic jury instructions, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 337(1). The court held to the contrary, concluding that the monthly payments or deliveries were a series of severable contractual obligations. In both their words and conduct, the parties established a periodic procedure for the performance of their respective obligations. The operator's performance of part of its obligations by making a monthly payment or delivery was divisible from its obligations to make other monthly payments or otherwise satisfy the nonoperator's net revenue interest. All of the elements of a cause of action relating to a breach of each monthly obligation did not occur, and thus a cause of action did not accrue, until the operator made the incorrect payment or delivery for that month.
The court affirmed the judgment in favor of the nonoperator.
Plaintiff investor sought a declaratory judgment and quiet title to property on which nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings had been initiated by defendants, a bank, a loan servicer, and a foreclosure trustee. The Santa Clara County Superior Court, California, sustained defendants' demurrer to the first amended complaint without leave to amend. Plaintiff appealed from the ensuing judgment of dismissal.
The court concluded that the possession of the original promissory note was not required under the applicable statutes. Civ. Code, § 2924, subd. (a)(1), did not mandate physical possession of the underlying promissory note in order for the initiation of foreclosure to be valid. Although plaintiff contended that the notice of default was defective for inadequately identifying the bank as the beneficiary, plaintiff was unable to articulate how any technical defect resulted in prejudice to him. Plaintiff did not offer any separate reasons for finding a viable cause of action for quiet title in the face of defendants' foreclosure efforts. As plaintiff suggested no reasonable possibility that the defects in the first amended complaint could be cured by further amendment, the court found no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision not to grant leave to amend.
The judgment of dismissal was affirmed.
