Montana Supreme Court to decide whether dinosaur fossils are minerals Friday, November 8, 2019

Courthouse News Service

The Montana Supreme Court met en banc Thursday morning to decide once and for all whether or not dinosaur fossils are minerals.

The question emerged when a Tyrannosaurus rex was discovered in 2013 on Mary Ann and Lige Murray’s property in Garfield, Montana. Though the Murrays owned the surface of the land, they shared oil, gas, and coal rights with several other companies including BEJ Minerals, and the couple sued BEJ Minerals for complete ownership of the T. rex.

In 2016, U.S. District Judge Susan Watters, an Obama appointee, entered summary judgment in favor of the Murrays, declaring them “the sole owners of the dinosaur fossils found on the subject property.”

But the extraction companies appealed. In May, the Ninth Circuit called for the Montana Supreme Court to weigh in because no other controlling precedent existed in the Treasure State.

Read more at: https://www.courthousenews.com/montana-supreme-court-to-decide-whether-dinosaur-fossils-are-minerals/