Opinion ID: 2635152
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: appellant's issues on appeal

Text: The seemingly straightforward issue presented is whether the 1924-26 deeds, conveying all coal ... together with the right to mine and remove same, should be interpreted as also transferring ownership of the methane gas contained within the coal formation. However, Central's brief sets forth five issues. First, Central queries [w]hether the 1924, 1925, and 1926 warranty deeds entered into by the Defendants' predecessors in title conveyed to Plaintiff, as grantee of the entire coal estate, the methane gas within the coal. Central answers that question by arguing for our adoption of a first severance rule, coupled with the application of the container theory, to find, as a matter of law, that when coal is the first mineral resource severed from the fee and there is no reservation upon that initial severing conveyance, the grantee would thereafter own all and everything which is contained within the coal formation. Central's second issue is [w]hether K.S.A. 58-2202 operates to convey all the estate of the grantors in the granted coal, including methane gas, where the grantors in the warranty deeds failed to expressly except rights to methane gas contained within the granted coal. When the coal deeds were executed, essentially the same language now found in K.S.A. 58-2202 was set forth in R.S.1923, 67-202, which provided: The term `heirs,' or other words of inheritance, shall not be necessary to create or convey an estate in fee simple; and every conveyance of real estate shall pass all the estate of the grantor therein, unless the intent to pass a less estate shall expressly appear or be necessarily implied in the terms of the grant. R.S.1923, 67-202. Central contends that the statute requires that the CBM, which is physically intertwined with the coal, will automatically pass with a conveyance of the coal, unless an intent to reserve or except the CBM expressly appears in or can be necessarily implied from the terms of the coal deed. The next issue presented is [w]hether the warranty deeds should be interpreted to give each deed the meaning a reasonable person would give the deed at the time of the conveyance. Central argues that we have a legal duty to ascribe a meaning to a document that is consistent with the parties' intent at the time the contract was made. To do that, Central lobbies for the court to employ a reasonably intelligent person standard and to permit extrinsic evidence as to the circumstances and conditions under which the contract was made, even if the instrument is unambiguous, in order to place the language of the instrument in the proper context. Similarly, Central's fourth issue is [w]hether the warranty deeds must be interpreted in light of their historical context with the goal of ascertaining the objective intent of the parties in 1924, 1925, and 1926 when the conveyances were made. Central reiterates the temporal argument that an interpretation of the deeds must seek the parties' intent at the time of their making, not at the time of the lawsuit. Central asserts that the district court erred in considering the present-day value of CBM as an energy source, when at the time the coal deeds were made, CBM was simply a hazardous by-product of coal mining which the mine owner/operator was required by law to ventilate for the safety of the miners. Central also suggests that the district court's application of its own context operated to impair the parties' freedom to contract. The final issue briefed by Central is [w]hether the District Court erred by failing to grant `Plaintiff's Motion for Judicial Notice of Specific Facts.' Central complains of the district court's finding that not all of the facts contained within the voluminous data it submitted were relevant. Central contends that the district court was required by K.S.A. 60-410(b)(2) to first take judicial notice of the facts and then determine their admissibility, e.g., relevancy. Accordingly, Central asks us to grant the motion and take judicial notice of the submitted material.