Court Opinion

ID: 9858595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:32:28.270733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:03.909754
License: Public Domain

HALL, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the reversal and remand. However, I wish to make it clear that it is my opinion that the reservation in question does not, in the words of Acker v. Guinn, “affirmatively and fairly” express on its face an intention by the parties to it “to include a substance that must be removed by methods that will, in effect, consume or deplete the surface estate.”
The summary judgment must be reversed and the case remanded for another trial because (1) the plaintiff pleaded for and was awarded in the judgment title to all lignite that may be mined by open-pit methods from the tract in question when, under the holding in Acker v. Guinn, she received by the grant under review only the lignite that must be removed by such methods; and (2) the summary judgment proof does not establish as a matter of law that the lignite in controversy must be mined by open-pit methods.