Court Opinion

ID: 9785113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:04:11.957562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:03.715792
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge LEAVITT.
Respectfully, I dissent. The 1902 deed grants Fiore the right to remove all coal “in and under the land” without liability for any damage to the surface estate or the support estate.1 It is difficult to imagine a broader reservation of a property interest in coal. Over the years, our Supreme Court has construed deeds for the purpose of determining whether they permit the owner of the coal to extract that coal by strip mining. The deed most like Fiore’s deed was that construed in Commonwealth v. Fitzmartin, 376 Pa. 390, 102 A.2d 893 (1954), which is still good law. Under Fitzmartin, the 1902 deed must be construed to grant Fiore the right to extract his coal by means of strip mining. Otherwise, Fiore’s fee simple title to certain coal is meaningless.
In Fitzmartin, the language of the deed provided that “all the coal ... in and under the surface of said land” could be mined “without any liability whatsoever for damages to said lands.” Id. at 392, 102 A.2d at 894. Our Supreme Court found it significant that the coal in question could be removed only by strip mining. It explained that
[ujnless, therefore, the words “all the coal * * * in * * * the surface of said land * * * ” refer to and reserve the right to strip mine the coal, they would be meaningless, because the coal on the surface cannot, the parties agree, be removed by deep mining.
Id. at 399, 102 A.2d at 897. Here, the words “[a]ll the coal ... in and under all that certain tract of land ...” in Fiore’s deed have been rendered meaningless by the trial court because his coal cannot be extracted by deep mining methods, as the parties to this controversy agree. R.R. 17a (emphasis added).
The deed in Fitzmartin, as does Fiore’s deed, contained language authorizing the owner of the coal to construct shafts, drains, drafts, and ventilation. However, the Supreme Court declined to hold that this language proved an intent of the parties that the coal could be extracted only by deep mining. Instead, the Supreme Court relied on the “reservation in this deed,” which was “so similar” to that in “the Fisher case.” Fitzmartin, 376 Pa. at 399, 102 A.2d at 897. Indeed, the Supreme Court held that Commonwealth v. Fisher, 364 Pa. 422, 72 A.2d 568 (1950), “controls this case.” Id. Thus, the Supreme Court held that the deed at issue in Fitzmartin gave the owner of the coal the right to remove that coal by strip mining.
*1186In Fisher, the owner of the coal rights appealed an injunction restraining his ability to use strip mining to remove the coal that could not be removed by deep mining. The surface owner contended that the deed did not authorize this manner of extraction because strip mining was not anticipated when the deed was executed in 1855. Further, the surface owner claimed it was entitled to surface support. The Supreme Court ruled against the surface owner and dissolved the injunction.
The Supreme Court found that removing coal by starting at the surface and working down “was the earliest known method in Pennsylvania of mining anthracite coal and was originally performed by hand.” Fisher, 364 Pa. at 426, 72 A.2d at 570. It went on to observe that
[t]he invention and use of power shovels for the removal of the overburden was, of course, a later development, but there is no rule of law which would preclude defendant, having the right to mine the coal, from using methods for that purpose made possible by modern machinery and inventions.
Id. at 426-427, 72 A.2d at 570. It further explained that a grantee “is given such rights as are necessary for the reasonable and proper enjoyment of the thing granted.” Id. at 427, 72 A.2d at 570 (quotation and citation omitted).
Based on these long-standing principles, the Supreme Court reasoned in Fisher that the owner of the coal was entitled “from time to time to avail himself of modern inventions if by so doing he can more fully exercise and enjoy or carry out the object for which the way was granted.” Id. at 428, 72 A.2d at 570. Thus, the Supreme Court concluded that the owner of the coal had the right to excavate that coal by a method presently available for that purpose even though not anticipated, perhaps, by the parties to the deed.
The Supreme Court further held that this result was required because the deed in Fisher released the owner of the coal from the obligation of surface support. It found that the deed language providing the “full, free, absolute and exclusive right” to mine coal “in or upon any part of the land” implicitly released the owner of the coal rights from having to provide surface support. Id. at 429, 72 A.2d at 571. It reached this conclusion in spite of deed language requiring that necessary digging “be conducted with as little injury or damage” to the surface owner’s estate “as shall be practicable consistently with the success of the same.” Id. (emphasis in original). The Supreme Court interpreted the deed, as a whole, to mean that “the success of the digging and removal of the coal was to be the paramount objective,” even where the surface or support estates would be damaged as a result. Id. (emphasis in original).
In sum, the Supreme Court held that the deed in Fisher conferred the right to remove all of the coal, whether it was located near the surface or deep within the land, “by any method, old or new, appropriate and necessary for that purpose.” Id. at 430, 72 A.2d at 572. The owner of the coal rights was authorized to use modern methods of strip mining to remove coal too near the surface to be obtained by any other method of mining.
This case is on all fours with Fitzmar-tin. The deed language in the instant case is similar to that of the Fisher and Fitz-martin deeds. Specifically, the 1902 deed grants Fiore the right to mine “[a]ll the coal ... in and under all that certain tract of land.” R.R. 17a. The deed further grants
the right to mine and remove all and any part of the coal without being required to provide for the support of the overlying strata or surface, and without being *1187liable for any injury to the same or to any thing thereon or therein by reason thereof or by reason of the manufacture of the same or other coal into coke and with all reasonable privileges for ventilating, pumping and draining the mines together with the free and uninterrupted right of way through and under said lands....
R.R. 20a (emphasis added).2 In short, the reservation of rights in the 1902 deed is just as broad and all-encompassing as that in the Fisher and Fitzmartin deeds.3 The deed releases the owner of the coal from having to provide support, and it goes one step further: it releases the owner of the coal from any damage to the support estate caused by the extraction of the coal. The deed grants Fiore “free and uninterrupted right of way through and under said lands” to access the coal. R.R. 23a. Finally, the parties in this case have stipulated that this coal can be extracted only by surface mining and not by deep mining. Whether by pick-axe or by bulldozer, the instant deed contemplates that the mineral rights owner is permitted to mine the coal by whatever reasonable means necessary to effect its removal.
The majority, pointing to Wilkes-Barre Township School District v. Corgan, 403 Pa. 383, 170 A.2d 97 (1961) and Stewart v. Chemicky, 439 Pa. 43, 266 A.2d 259 (1970), argues that the Supreme Court has moved away from its holding in Fitzmartin. I disagree.
In Corgan, the deed in question granted the owner of the coal the right to drive tunnels under the surface to extract the coal. The deed released the owner of the coal from liability for injury to the surface of the land and did not require him to provide lateral or vertical support. The deed did not expressly release the owner of the coal from damage to the support estate, and there was no indication that the coal owned by Corgan could be extracted only by surface mining. The Supreme Court found that the reservation of rights in the Corgan deed was “clearly dissimilar and not nearly so all-encompassing as to the use of the surface of the land” granted to the owners of the coal in Fisher and Fitzmartin. Corgan, 403 Pa. at 391, 170 A.2d at 100-101. Significantly, the Supreme Court did not overrule either Fisher or Fitzmartin, but rather, distinguished them on the facts in holding that the deed in Corgan did not intend that the coal could be excavated by strip mining.
In Stewart, a jury awarded damages to the owner of the surface estate against an owner of coal who refused to restore the land he had strip mined. Damages were awarded in the amount necessary to return the removed overburden and to plant new trees. The owner of the coal rights appealed, arguing that his deed released him from “liability for damages for injury to the surface.” Stewart, 439 Pa. at 49, 266 A.2d at 263. The deed gave the owner of the coal the right to drain and ventilate the land. However, the StewaH deed did not release the owner of the coal from liability for damage to the support estate, nor was the deed broadly worded to include the right to remove all the coal in the land, as was the case in the Fitzmartin deed. Further, the coal could be removed by deep mining. Based on these differences, *1188the Supreme Court held in Stewart that the deed did not release the owner of the coal from liability for damage caused by strip mining.4
Once again, the Supreme Court declined to overrule Fitzmartin, choosing instead to distinguish the two cases on their facts. The Supreme Court explained that in Fitz-martin, the parties had agreed that the coal could only be removed by strip mining; thus, the deed’s language permitting the removal of all of the coal in the land would be rendered meaningless if strip mining were not permitted. Indeed, the Court found that Fitzmartin was correctly decided, stating that permitting strip mining was the “more rational and probable interpretation” of the deed. Id. at 54, 266 A.2d at 265. The Supreme Court went on to state that there was no claim of “special circumstances” in Stewart as there was in Fitzmartin, ie., that the coal could be excavated only by strip mining. Id.
Our Supreme Court’s recent decision in Belden & Blake Corporation v. Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, 600 Pa. 559, 969 A.2d 528 (2009), is also instructive. In Belden, the Supreme Court held that a deed’s grant of mineral rights to natural gas includes the right to possess the surface owned by the Commonwealth to the extent it was necessary to extract the gas. Analogizing to coal rights, the Supreme Court explained that
[o]ne who has the exclusive right to mine coal upon a tract of land has the right of possession even as against the owner of the soil, so far as it is necessary to carry on ... mining operations.
In Belden & Blake, the Supreme Court did not limit its inquiry to the language of the appurtenant clause in the deed to determine the scope of the mineral rights granted. Rather, it focused on whether the mineral rights owner’s proposed method of extraction was necessary to access the subsurface resources.
In the case at hand, we are faced with precisely the same “special circumstances” that existed in Fitzmartin. Fiore’s coal can be removed only by strip mining; Fiore’s deed contains a broad reservation of rights that permits the removal of all coal in the land; and the deed expressly releases Fiore from liability for damage to the surface and support estates. These factors set this case on all fours with Fitz-martin and factually distinguish it from Corgan and Stewart. In declining to overrule Fitzmartin, the Supreme Court has instructed that Fitzmartin’s principles are properly applied to factually similar cases, which includes the case at bar.
Fitzmartin, not Stewart, governs this case, as the parties conceded and the trial court held. However, the trial court erred in its application of Fitzmartin. It erred by finding that strip mining was not employed in Pennsylvania in 1902. Indeed, the Supreme Court explicitly recognized in Stewart, 439 Pa. at 50 n. 7, 266 A.2d at 263 n. 7, one of the primary cases on which the majority relies, that the method of “strip *1189mining was not unknown in 1902” in the Commonwealth. The trial court also erred in holding that unpaved walking and biking trails constitute “improvements” within the meaning of Fitzmartin.
For these reasons, I would reverse the trial court’s decision to strip Fiore of his fee simple title to certain coal. I would hold that the deed grants Fiore the right to excavate his coal by strip mining.5
Judge BROBSON joins in this dissenting opinion.

. The 1902 deed grants Fiore the
right to mine and remove all and any part of the coal without being required to provide for the support of the overlying strata or surface, and without being liable for any injury to the same....
Reproduced Record at 20a (R.R. _). This identical language appears also in the 1909 deed. R.R. 26. Otherwise the 1909 deed consists of a metes and bounds description of the land.

. The Fiore complaint, the trial court, and the majority opinion attribute this quoted language to the 1909 deed. A close review of the record reveals that all of the operative language appears in both the 1902 and 1909 deed.

. In Fitzmartin, the release of liability with respect to the support estate was found to be “implicit” in the deed language. Here, by contrast, the deed expressly releases Fiore from liability for damage to the support estate.

. In these deed cases, the ownership of the coal estate was separated from the ownership of the surface estate. The surface owner relied on common law principles to protect the use and enjoyment of that surface estate. In Stewart, for example, the surface owner sought to have his surface estate restored to its pre-mining condition in a common law trespass claim for damages. Notably, statutory law protects the surface estate; indeed, that statutory law requires land reclamation even where the same person owns the surface and coal estates. Section 4(a)(2)(F) of the Surface Mining Conservation and Reclamation Act, Act of May 31, 1945, P.L. 1198, as amended, 52 P.S. §§ 1396.l-1396.19a, 1396.4(a)(2) provides that "any person” wishing to surface mine coal must reclaim the land.

. Our job is to construe the deed in accordance with contract principles and property law and not to use those principles as a vehicle for environmental regulation. Although the deed confers upon Fiore the right to employ strip mining, the sky is not falling on South Park. Fiore must comply with the Surface Mining Conservation and Reclamation Act, which has been significantly revised since 1970, when Stewart was decided. The Surface Mining Act requires Fiore, and all surface mine operators, to reclaim the land after the coal is removed. Section 4(a)(2)(F) of the Surface Mining Act requires the surface mine operator to develop a "complete and detailed plan for the reclamation of the land affected,” including "the written consent of the landowner to entry upon any land to be affected by the operation.” 52 P.S. § 1396.4(a)(2)(F). The obligation to carry out the reclamation plan is secured by a bond, which will be forfeited if the land is not reclaimed. 52 P.S. § 1396.4(d). Section 4.5(h)(3) also states, in pertinent part, that
no surface mining operations ... shall be permitted ... [wjhich will adversely affect any public owned park ... unless approved jointly by the department and the Federal, State, or local agency with jurisdiction over the park....
52 P.S. § 1396.4e(h)(3).