Vicars v. First Virginia Bank-Mountain Empire

458 S.E.2d 293, 250 Va. 103, 1995 Va. LEXIS 92
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedJune 9, 1995
DocketRecord No. 941447
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 458 S.E.2d 293 (Vicars v. First Virginia Bank-Mountain Empire) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vicars v. First Virginia Bank-Mountain Empire, 458 S.E.2d 293, 250 Va. 103, 1995 Va. LEXIS 92 (Va. 1995).

Opinion

JUSTICE LACY

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this appeal, we consider whether general language in a deed was sufficient to convey mineral interests in a tract of land which was not specifically identified in the deed.

This controversy arose when Dennis Barnette, trading as Kodiak Mining Company (Kodiak), removed coal from a 71.75-acre tract of land in Wise County. Kodiak paid First Virginia Bank-Mountain Empire (the Bank) $189,799.59 in production royalties based on the Bank’s claim that it owned the mineral interests in the tract. The Bank’s ownership claim was disputed by the appellants, Delores B. Vicars, June B. Belcher, Mickey B. Hicks, John D. Baker, Jr., and Eva A. Baker (the Baker family). The Baker family maintained that the Bank had only a one-half interest in the tract’s mineral rights and that they owned the other one-half interest. The Baker family filed suit against Kodiak and the Bank, alleging that the coal was removed without the Baker [105]*105family’s permission and seeking damages for intentional trespass and waste.1

Prior to trial, Kodiak and the Bank filed a motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of damages. The trial court granted the motion, holding that the Baker family consented to the mining of the coal and agreed to the royalty rate paid by Kodiak mining. Based on this holding, the Baker family’s potential damages were limited to damages based on their claimed ownership interest only: fifty percent of the royalties paid by Kodiak mining for the removal of the coal from the disputed tract, calculated to be $94,899.79.

The case proceeded to trial on the issue of the parties’ ownership interests in the 71.75-acre tract. The trial court, citing Amos v. Coffey, 228 Va. 88, 320 S.E.2d 335 (1984), concluded that a 1923 deed from J.L. Litz and his wife (J.L.), the Baker family’s predecessor in title, to A.Z. Litz (A.Z.), a predecessor in title to the Bank, conveyed J.L.’s interest in the 71.75-acre tract to A.Z. Therefore, the trial court held that the Baker family had no interest in the mineral rights of the tract and was not entitled to any damages stemming from the removal of coal from that tract. The Baker family appealed, assigning error to the trial court’s decisions on both the ownership and damages issues. We consider these assignments in order.

I.

The ownership rights at issue initially depend on the construction of the 1923 deed. The Bank claims that the trial court correctly held that this deed conveyed the mineral interests of J.L. in the 71.75-acre tract to A.Z. and, as successor in title to A.Z., the Bank now owns those interests. The Baker family asserts that the 1923 deed did not convey any interests in the 71.75-acre tract but that J.L. retained those interests until he died intestate in 1940. The Bank’s interest in the mineral rights in the tract, the Baker family contends, did not arise until 1948, when J.L.’s daughter and sole surviving heir, Mabel Litz Baker, and her husband exe[106]*106cuted a deed conveying a one-half undivided interest in the mineral rights of the 71.75-acre tract to A.Z. Litz, Jr.

In construing deeds, the intent of the grantor should be ascertained through the words used in the conveyance, where possible. Trailsend Land Co. v. Virginia Holding Corp., 228 Va. 319, 325-26, 321 S.E.2d 667, 670 (1984). The trial court held that the 1923 deed was not ambiguous and neither party contends otherwise. Where the terms of a deed are not ambiguous, we “look no further than the four corners of the instrument under review.” Id. at 325, 321 S.E.2d at 670. Therefore, we confine our review to the provisions of the 1923 deed.

The 1923 deed stated, in pertinent part, that J.L. conveyed “all of those certain tracts pieces or parcels of land lying and being situate in the county of Wise, Virginia, and more particularly bound and described as follows.” This language was followed by seven paragraphs, each of which described certain tracts of land by deed book reference and acreage. The referenced deeds were those used to convey the property to a predecessor in title, Milburn Gilliam. The disputed 71.75-acre tract was not among those tracts listed and described in the deed. The seventh paragraph of the deed, in addition to describing a parcel of land conveyed to Gilliam by W.J. Ireson and his wife, contained the following language:

all the descriptions in the above given references are made a part and embodied as a part of this conveyance, and the intention of this deed is to convey all the rights, title and interest acquire[d] by [J.L.] from the wife and heirs of Milburn Gilliam’s estate.

The Bank argues that the general language in the seventh paragraph referring to the conveyance of all the rights, title, and interest acquired from Gilliam included J.L.’s mineral rights in the 71.75-acre tract even though that tract was not specifically described or mentioned in the deed. This construction of the deed’s language, the Bank contends, is supported by the decision in Amos v. Coffey, 228 Va. at 94, 320 S.E.2d at 338.

The deed in Amos conveyed specific parcels, identified by metes and bounds descriptions, “in or near the Town of Gretna” in Pittsylvania County. Id. at 90, 320 S.E.2d at 336. After specifically identifying the parcels in Gretna, the deed provided:

[107]*107It is the intention of the parties of the first part to convey to the party of the second part all the real estate which they now own in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, including but not restricted to the lands described above.

Id.

We held that the deed not only conveyed the identified parcels, but also conveyed the grantors’ one-twelfth undivided interest in a farm located near Gretna, even though the farm was not specifically identified in the deed. The transfer of this property was accomplished by the general words of conveyance contained in the deed. Id. at 94, 320 S.E.2d at 338.

Amos, however, is inapposite because there are significant differences between the intention and conveyance language in the two deeds. Not only does the Amos deed recite the intention of the grantors to convey “all” interests in land in Pittsylvania County, it unequivocally expands the conveyance to property beyond that specifically described in the deed. No analogous language is found in the deed at issue here.

A second and equally significant difference between Amos and the instant case is found in the language of conveyance. The Amos deed conveyed parcels located “in or near” Gretna. In Amos, the Court found that the property identified by the metes and bounds descriptions exhausted the class of property to be conveyed “in” Gretna. The general language in the deed identified a second class of property to be conveyed “near” Gretna. The grantors’ interest in the farm in Pittsylvania County located “near” Gretna was part of the second class of property conveyed. Id. at 94, 320 S.E.2d at 338.

In the instant case, there is only one class of property involved: “all of those certain tracts ... of land lying ... in the county of Wise, Virginia, and more particularly bound and described as follows” (emphasis added).

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Vicars v. 1ST VIRGINIA BANK-MOUNTAIN EMPIRE
458 S.E.2d 293 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1995)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
458 S.E.2d 293, 250 Va. 103, 1995 Va. LEXIS 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vicars-v-first-virginia-bank-mountain-empire-va-1995.