Opinion ID: 1485145
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: 464 S.W.2d 348, Tex.1971)

Text: The question in Acker v. Guinn was whether an interest in iron ore passed to the grantee in a 1941 deed which conveyed an undivided ½ interest in and to all of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under, and that may be produced from a tract of land in Cherokee County. The ore deposits in the area varied in thickness from a few inches to three or four feet and ranged in depths from outcropping on the surface to as much as fifty feet below the surface. There was no question but that the ore must be mined by the open pit or strip method. The Supreme Court affirmed a summary judgment in favor of the surface owner. The Court wrote that a general intent rather than the specific thinking or intent of the parties should be the inquiry where the instrument itself expresses no specific intent and it can only be supposed. The general intent of a grant or reservation of minerals by a fee owner was taken to be to create an estate in the mineral owner in the valuable substances usually removed from the ground by means of wells or mine-shafts but not by a method which would destroy or deplete the surface. The Court then declared that the following rule was to be applied in determining whether an interest in the iron ore was conveyed by the deed in that case: Unless the contrary intention is affirmatively and fairly expressed, therefore, a grant or reservation of minerals or mineral rights should not be construed to include a substance that must be removed by methods that will, in effect, consume or deplete the surface estate. The Court clearly based the disposition of Acker v. Guinn upon this rule and concluded that the conveyance of all oil, gas and other minerals ... that may be produced included no interest in iron ore. The Court might have construed the conveyance to vest ownership of all ore in the mineral owner and allowed the problem of minerals lying near the surface to be met by limiting the implied easement of the mineral owner in the use of the surface for extraction or production of those minerals. That was not the holding in Acker v. Guinn . The substance which can be extracted only by substantial destruction of the surface is owned by the surface owner. Here, as in Acker v. Guinn , the Court is construing a written instrument. If the instrument had specifically reserved coal and lignite, or if the conveyance had expressly reserved all minerals lying upon the surface or at any depth and including those minerals which may be produced by open pit or strip mining, the intention and effect of the instrument would have been clearly expressed. Furthermore, mineral ores and coal and lignite would ordinarily be reserved to the mineral interest owner by the terms of the Wylie to Baker instrument. That is not true, however, under Acker v. Guinn , if any part of the substance lies so near the surface that to be extracted it must be removed by methods that will, in effect, consume or deplete the surface estate. Because it is not expected that the parties to the instrument would have intended the destruction of the surface by the mineral owner in the absence of an expression of that intention, their use of mineral in the instrument is not construed to include the near surface substance. Once the instrument is construed to that effect, this particular substanceat whatever depth is not a mineral for all purposes of the instrument. Acker v. Guinn stands for the rule that a substance is not a mineral if substantial quantities of that substance lie so near the surface that the production will entail the stripping away and substantial destruction of the surface. That being the circumstance, and there being no contrary affirmative expression in the instrument, it controls the construction of the instrument as to the same substance at all depths. It is improper therefore to declare that the surface owner is entitled to only so much of the substance as may be produced by strip mining or pit mining. We are not dividing the right to produce the substance; we are construing the instrument of conveyance to ascertain the ownership of the substance. Furthermore, the rule of construction does not favor the surface owner simply because it is shown that the substance may be produced by strip or pit mining. Instead, the surface estate owner must prove that, as of the date of the instrument being construed, if the substance near the surface had been extracted, that extraction would necessarily have consumed or depleted the land surface. If the method of production required the removal of surface soil, it is immaterial that devices of restoration or reclamation were available. The thinking or intention or knowledge of the parties, or the lack of knowledge, would also be immaterial. The value of the substance, either on the date of the instrument or at any subsequent date, would not change the rule of construction announced in Acker v. Guinn .