The Pennsylvania Superior Court has held that the Dunham Rule, which presumes that deed reservations of “minerals” do not to include oil and gas rights, is inapplicable to tax sales.

A unanimous three-judge panel in Cornwall Mountain Investments v. Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust upheld a Lycoming County trial judge’s ruling that the transfer of mineral rights from the subsurface owners to the surface owner of property in Cogan House Township in a 1932 tax sale included oil and gas.