Cengage Advantage Books: Law for Business 18th Edition by John Ashcroft ,Janet Ashcroft

Exercise 28

Denbury Resources Inc. was engaged in collecting oil through a process that injects CO 2 into the ground. It wanted to build a pipeline from its CO 2 reserves in Mississippi to Texas oil wells. Under Texas law, a "common carrier" has the power of eminent domain to build pipeline over private land. Denbury filed the appropriate paperwork with the State of Texas and sent its employees out to survey land for a pipeline. Part of the path would cross land owned by Texas Rice Land Partners (Rice). When the Rice farmers refused to let the Denbury employees onto their land, Denbury sued. Was the proposed pipeline running from Denbury CO 2 reserves to the Denbury oil wells properly characterized as a common carrier?