Opinion ID: 1259711
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Independent Contractor

Text: On review of the trial court's dismissal of plaintiffs' action on motion for summary judgment because of the finding that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact for jury trial, and despite the basic emphasis placed by counsel on the importance of the exculpatory clauses, the Court may not disregard other obvious issues manifest in the record. Plaintiffs elected to commence their action against a single defendant, an independent contractor directly charged with the injuries and damages to their residence property. The Court is obliged to consider whether the complaint and answer, the two pleadings in the record, present any genuine issues of material facts for trial, apart from and independent of the exculpatory clauses. Differences are readily noted between the arguments advanced and the authorities cited by counsel in their briefs with emphasis on the exculpatory clauses and the issues and principles of law which may control the determination and disposition of the action now before the Court. In the Mullins case, supra, it appears that the plaintiffs owned their property subject to mineral severance deeds which vested in the defendant, Beatrice Pocahontas Company, coal mining and removal rights. In the Stamp case, supra, it appears that plaintiffs owned their property subject to a coal severance deed which vested in the defendant, Windsor Power House Coal Company, coal mining and removal rights. In the present litigation it appears that New River and Pocahontas Consolidated Coal Company owns the coal and, as lessor, has leased certain coal mining and removal rights to Consolidation Coal Company, as lessee. The lessee has entered into an agreement whereby the defendant, Junior Pocahontas Coal Company, as an independent contractor, agrees to strip mine certain seams of coal and to deliver the coal to lessee at a fixed production cost per ton. Under the strip mining agreement, Junior Pocahontas Coal Company owns and holds no estate or interest in the coal properties embraced in lessee's leasehold estate. The independent contractor is obliged to furnish the equipment and workmen to remove the coal and deliver it to lessor. The independent contractor does not own the coal in place or as removed. The situation is somewhat comparable to the gas well drilling arrangements in McCoy, Hall and Arbogast v. Cohen, 149 W.Va. 197, 140 S.E.2d 427 (1965). Other illustrations are noted in 41 Am. Jur.2d, Independent Contractors, § 9 (1968). While privity of estate may exist between the owner of the coal and the lessee, only privity of contract exists between the lessee and the independent contractor. In 20 Am. Jur.2d, Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions, § 34, the distinction is well stated as follows: A distinction is made between privity of contract and privity of estate, and the rule is that privity of contract alone is insufficient to carry the benefit of a covenant to subsequent owners of the property. Similarly, a difference is indicated between the benefit and the burden with respect to the necessity for privity of estate. Thus, while the benefit, upon a transfer of land, will pass with the property to which it is incident, the burden or liability will be confined to the original covenantor, unless the relation of privity of estate exists or is created between the covenantor and the convenantee at the time when the covenant is made. In the agreement of September 1, 1961, between the lessee, Consolidation Coal Company, and the independent contractor, defendant in this action, Article Eleven provides: It is understood and agreed by and between the parties hereto that the operations of Junior, as herein contemplated, shall be conducted in a manner consistent with and subject to the rights terms, conditions, provisions, restrictions and stipulations contained in the papers under which Consolidation is in possession of the property known as Berwind property. All royalties on the coal to be mined hereunder shall be borne by Consolidation. Those provisions constitute contract language in the agreement between the lessee and the independent contractor by which the parties agree to be bound. The language is not intended to insulate and does not legally insulate the independent contractor's strip mining operations from tort liability to third parties. Nor does the language in the independent contractor's agreement insulate the defendant's strip mining operations from tort liability to plaintiffs who own their nearby surface land residence property under a deed limited by conditions, exceptions and reservations constituting the exculpatory clauses on which defendant bases its defense to plaintiffs' action for damages. These plaintiffs, and other surface land residence property owners similarly situated who have actions pending in the trial court, are not parties bound, obligated or limited by the terms and provisions of the independent contractor's agreement. When a plaintiff, so situated, is satisfied as to the responsibility and the solvency of the independent contractor, he may elect not to look beyond the independent contractor, the immediate cause of his complaint, to other parties to whom liability may attach for the damages he may claim.