Murray v. Mineral Spring Coal Co.

23 Pa. D. & C. 280, 1934 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 219
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Luzerne County
DecidedDecember 27, 1934
Docketno. 8
StatusPublished

This text of 23 Pa. D. & C. 280 (Murray v. Mineral Spring Coal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Luzerne County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murray v. Mineral Spring Coal Co., 23 Pa. D. & C. 280, 1934 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 219 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1934).

Opinion

Valentine, J.,

Plaintiff seeks a continuance of a preliminary injunction restraining the defendants from entering upon and excavating the surface of a tract of land situate in the outskirts of the City of Wilkes-Barre, and containing 218 acres.

On August 9, 1900, the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind and the Contributors to the Pennsylvania Hospital leased to the Mineral Spring Coal Company, predecessor in title of the present operating defendant, “all the coal lying and being in, under and upon” a tract of land comprising 322 acres, of which surface now owned by the plaintiff is a part, “To have and to hold the said coal in, under and upon the said piece or parcel of land . . . together with the sole and exclusive right to mine and remove the same. . . . Until all and singular the merchantable coal in, under and upon the said described premises shall have been mined out and removed.” The lessee covenanted to pay the lessors a minimum annual cash rental designated in the lease “until . . . such minimum shall be diminished or wholly ended by the exhaustion of the merchantable coal in the process of mining, or by such coal being paid for before the actual mining.” The lessee further covenanted “to mine all the merchantable coal upon the demised premises in a skillful and careful manner and that no unnecessary waste of coal shall be caused or permitted in the mining, preparing and removing of the same.”

The lessee further covenanted “to work the said coal [282]*282diligently and in a workmanlike manner with as little injury to the surface as reasonably can be.”

The plaintiff acquired title to the surface of 218 acres subject to the rights of the lessee and its successors in title under said lease.

In addition to the provisions heretofore quoted, surface rights of the lessee were provided for as follows: “that it (lessee) will not deposit the culm or dirt" incident to the mining of coal hereby leased on the surface of the tract herein described in such a manner as to interfere with any water courses or occasion damage to any adjacent properties,” and that the lessee should have the right to “mine, remove and prepare for market coal from other lands now or hereafter owned, leased or otherwise controlled by the said lessee, through, over and upon the lands hereby leased and the passage ways and mining improvements upon the demised premises”; also, “That the lessee shall have the right to mine and remove and prepare for market the coal from the demised premises through, over and upon any other lands and the passage ways and mining improvements thereon owned, leased or. otherwise controlled by it.”

. Defendant’s counsel have ably argued that by the provisions of the lease the surface rights of the tract referred to in the lease were subordinated to the mining operations.

The lease is to be construed most strongly against the lessors: Miles v. The New York, Susquehanna & Western Coal Co., 250 Pa. 147; and, if possible, in such a way as to give effect to all its terms and conditions: Heningkamp v. Valley Smokeless Coal Co., 274 Pa. 186. The lease provided for the use of portions of the surface. It gives no express right to destroy the surface, nor do we think that such a right is to be implied from the language of the grant.

In several well considered English authorities involving somewhat similar situations conclusions have been [283]*283reached that owners of the minerals were not entitled to remove them where such removal involved injury to or destruction of the surface.

In Harris v. Ryding, 5 Mees. & W. 60, the grant under consideration was of “ ‘all and all manner of coals, seams and veins of coal, iron ore, and all other mines, minerals, and metals which then were, or at any time, and from time to time thereafter, should be discovered in or upon the said premises, etc., with free liberty of ingress, egress, and regress, to come into and upon the premises, to dig, delve, search for, and get etc. the said mines and every part thereof, and to sell and dispose of, take, and convey away the same, at their free will and pleasure; and also to sink shafts, etc., for the raising up works, carrying away and disposing of the same or any part thereof, making a fair compensation to P. [claimant] for the damage to be done to the surface of the premises, and the pasture and crops growing thereon.’ ”

In Roberts et al. v. Haines, 6 El. & Bl. 643, the owner of the mines was authorized “to search for, dig, get, and raise, any coal and ironstone lying and being in or under the commons and waste lands, and to erect any work or works for that purpose, and to dig and take earth for making and to make bricks for any such work or works, and to carry away and dispose of such coal and ironstone to and for his and their own use”.

In Smart et al. v. Morton, 5 El. & Bl. 30, the language was “ ‘with free leave and liberty to sink, work and win the same in any part of the said premises, and to drive drift or drifts, make Watergate or watergates, or use any other way or ways, for the better and more commodious working and winning the same in the said hereby granted or intended to be granted premises, or any part thereof’ ”.

In Noonan v. Pardee, 200 Pa. 474, at page 482, it is said: “Where there has been a horizontal division of the [284]*284land, the owner of the subjacent estate, coal or other mineral, owes to the superincumbent owner, a right of support. This is an absolute right arising out of the ownership of the surface. Good or bad mining in no way affects the responsibility; what the surface owner has a right to demand is, sufficient support, even, if to that end, it be necessary to leave every pound of coal untouched under his land”; and in Youghiogheny River Coal Co. v. Allegheny National Bank, 211 Pa. 319, at page 323, the Court declared: “When there has been a severance of ownership of the surface and the coal, the owners of the respective estates hold them as estates in land, and, of course, the title and rights of each depend upon his conveyance. If the owner of the whole fee conveys the coal in the land in general terms, as in this case, retaining the residue of the tract, the purchaser acquires the coal with the right to mine and remove it, provided he does so without injury to the superincumbent estate. His estate in the coal, like that of the owner of the surface, is governed by the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non 1 sedas. The owner of the surface is entitled to absolute support of his land, not as an easement or right depending on a supposed grant, but as a proprietary right at common law: Carlin v. Chappel, 101 Pa. 348; 2 Snyder on Mines, sec. 1020. Support for the superincumbent estate is of natural right and is part of the estate reserved to the owner of the surface: Coleman v. Chadwick, 80 Pa. 81.”

In Rowbotham et al. v. Wilson, 8 H. L. Cas. 348, the right to destroy the surface was sustained where in accordance with the provisions of an act of Parliament commissioners appointed to allot the lands, surface and minerals provided in their award that the mineral lands “should be lawfully held and enjoyed by the allottees without molestation, and without any mine owner being subject to any action for damages on account of work[285]*285ing and getting the mines, or by reason that the lands might be ‘rendered uneven and less commodious to the occupiers thereof, or by sinking in hollows, and being otherwise defaced and injured where such mines shall be worked’

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80 Pa. 81 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1876)
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Youghiogheny River Coal Co. v. Allegheny National Bank
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Miles v. Pennsylvania Coal Co.
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Heningkamp v. Valley Smokeless Coal Co.
118 A. 28 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1922)

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Bluebook (online)
23 Pa. D. & C. 280, 1934 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murray-v-mineral-spring-coal-co-pactcomplluzern-1934.