Case Title: In re Petition of Doering

Citation: 165 Vt 603, 686 A.2d 101

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1996-08-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
In re Petition of Doering  (94-362); 165 Vt 603; 686 A.2d 101

[Opinion Filed 26-Aug-1996]

                               ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 94-362

                              JUNE TERM, 1996


In re Petition of Doering            }     APPEALED FROM:
                                     }
                                     }
                                     }     Windsor Superior Court
                                     }
                                     }
                                     }      DOCKET NO. S135-91WrCa


       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       Henry and Carolyn Doering appeal from a judgment of the Windsor
  Superior Court, arguing that the court erred in concluding that William
  Tabor, Jane Tabor Taylor and Marie Tabor Wortman, heirs to the estate of
  Rolla Bugbee, own a fee simple interest in metals and minerals underlying
  property owned by the Doerings.  We affirm.

       The Doerings first became aware that subsurface mineral rights had
  been severed when they purchased their property in 1964.  Their deed stated
  that the "premises are subject to the exception and reservation of mineral
  and metal rights and right of way as described in a deed from Rolla G.
  Bugbee to Nora S. Booth dated May 10, 1899."  The relevant portion of the
  Bugbee deed reads as follows:

     The farm whereon my father the late George H. Bugbee
     lived for many years and at time of his decease containing one
     hundred and sixty (160) acres of land more or less lying on both
     sides of the highway leading from Bridgewater Centre to Barnard;
     being all and the same premises which Russell N. Wood and wife
     conveyed to said George H. Bugbee by deed dated November 11,
     1857 and recorded in Book 16 Page 477 of Land Records of said
     Bridgewater to which I refer excepting and reserving to myself and
     my heirs and assigns forever all minerals and metals and the
     perpetual right without payment of damages or otherwise to
     prospect for, mine and take soapstone, talc, quartz and all other
     minerals and metals and to haul, team, dig and do as and whatever
     is necessary and convenient for that purpose at any and all times
     on and in all of said premises which are on the Westerly side of
     said highway except on the house-lot of about one acre as the same
     is now enclosed by fence whereon are the house and sheds; across
     said house-lot I reserve to myself, my heirs and assigns forever a
     right of way as and where it is now traveled but no other
     privileges or rights.  No rights of any kind are reserved on land
     Easterly of said highway.

  (Emphasis added.)

  

       Rolla Bugbee died intestate.  When his estate was probated, the
  probate court held that Bugbee's heirs owned in fee simple the mineral
  rights on the Doering property.  The Doerings appealed from that decision
  to the Windsor Superior Court, claiming that they had acquired title to the
  minerals through adverse possession, or, in the alternative, that Bugbee's
  heirs had abandoned their interest in the minerals.  After a de novo trial,
  the superior court affirmed the decision of the probate court.

                                     I.

       The Doerings first claim that the heirs do not hold a fee simple
  interest in the minerals themselves, but instead hold only the intangible
  right to prospect or mine for minerals.  The Doerings further contend that
  this intangible right has been abandoned.

       It is long settled in Vermont that minerals and mining rights can be
  severed from a property to "form a distinct possession and different
  inheritances from the surface."  Jones v. Vermont Asbestos Corp., 108 Vt.
  79, 105, 182 A. 291, 303 (1936).  The language of the Bugbee deed clearly
  evinces an intent to sever the minerals and mining rights from the property
  conveyed.  As the above excerpt from the deed reveals, the grantor used
  language of reservation and inheritance to sever and retain the minerals,
  metals and mining rights for himself and his "heirs and assigns forever." 
  See Okemo Mountain, Inc. v. Town of Ludlow, ___ Vt. ___, ___,