Home/West Virginia Supreme Court/Chafin v. Gay Coal & Coke Co.

Chafin v. Gay Coal & Coke Co.

156 S.E. 47, 109 W. Va. 453, 1930 W. Va. LEXIS 96
CourtWest Virginia Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 7, 1930
Docket6811
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 156 S.E. 47 (Chafin v. Gay Coal & Coke Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering West Virginia Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chafin v. Gay Coal & Coke Co., 156 S.E. 47, 109 W. Va. 453, 1930 W. Va. LEXIS 96 (W. Va. 1930).

Opinion

LIVELY;, PRESIDENT:

This controversy is between Mary Chafin, an heir of Moses Mounts, deceased, and Gay Coal & Coke Company, the lessee of Mounts, over the use of the surface of the land leased; in which the heir seeks to enjoin the coal company from using the surface in operating its coal mine under the lease. The trial chancellor refused to enjoin, and dismissed the bill, and Mary Chafin appealed.

Moses Mounts owned a tract of about 850 acres at the junction of Trace Fork and Island Creek in Logan County and in 1903 leased it for coal mining purposes to the predecessors of Gay Coal & Coke Company for a period of thirty years with privilege of renewal for a like term. The lessee was given the usual mining rights, including use of timber, stone, surface for houses, ways, etc., necessary for the successful operation of the lease, but for no other purpose. Shortly after the execution of the lease, the lessee established and now operates a modern coal mine occupying that portion of the surface of the land facing railway transportation, and not prohibited under the lease, with its tipple, ways, miners’ houses, store building and the like. It is the use of this part of the surface thus occupied which is involved here. Moses Mounts died a short time after the lease was given, and this land was partitioned among his heirs by decree of November 10, 1905. That part of the land facing the water courses and the common carrier railroad (a portion of which was occupied by the coal company’s houses, tipple and ways) was partitioned into nine lots (there being nine children of Moses Mounts) designated on the map of partition as lots Nos. 10 to 19, inclusive, and lot No. 17 was allotted to plaintiff, Mary Chafin. On February 6, 1928, her *455 husband deeded to her a one-ninth interest in lot No. 11, which he had acquired mediately from Armel Mounts, who was allotted, by the partition decree, Lot No. 11. So, at the time of the institution of this suit, she owned lot No. 17, and, according to her husband’s testimony, all of lot No. 11, both subject to the easement of the coal company lease for the purpose’ of getting out coal from the 850 acre tract. The partition decree described lot No. 17 as “beginning at a corner of lot No. 16 and with line of same up the hill to the back line of the Moses Mounts estate, and with same up the creek 180 feet, thence down the hill parallel with the lower line to the bottom land and with same to the beginning, containing 3 acres ’ ’, subject to the coal lease. Lot No. 11, allotted to Armel Mounts (which plaintiff now claims to own) was also described as beginning at a corner of Rosa Skaggs’ (lot No. 10) 3-acre lot, and then follows the calls and distances, and as containing 2% acres. A photostatic copy of defendants’ exhibit No. 6, accepted as correct by plaintiff as to exterior boundaries of the area divided into lots 10 to 19, will visualize the partition of the 850 acres, including that portion of the land included in lots 10 to 19, inclusive; and will visualize the entire controversy.

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Bluebook (online)
156 S.E. 47, 109 W. Va. 453, 1930 W. Va. LEXIS 96, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chafin-v-gay-coal-coke-co-wva-1930.