Court Opinion

ID: 9636050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:14:24.997965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:41.322105
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Auden M. Stearns:
Apparently the court below and the majority are of opinion that a decision of this Court, hereinafter referred to, governs and controls this case. What is being done was called, by the late Justice Cardozo in his treatise, The Nature of The Judicial Process, an attempt to match samples. The sample cited by the court below and the majority does not possess a nearness in shade to the case now before us. Furthermore, I do not agree that the use which the grantee makes of the surface of the land conveyed has any place in the interpretation of the written clause of reservation. But even if it does, the Commonwealth’s use of this large tract of land should be given tremendous weight. In addition to its recreational value, it is being reforested, is necessary for soil conservation and retention of surface water for the prevention of floods and is needed as a water storage area in case of drought. The importance of such use to the United *402States Government and to the various states is well known. It transcends any use as farming land. The dire effect of dust bowls and of floods destroying land, buildings and life, wholly due to the failure to reforest and retain plant life, has in the past been patently demonstrated.
The appeal in this case is by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the plaintiff, from the refusal of the court below to grant an injunction against two individuals trading as the F. & W. Coal Company, to restrain them from strip mining on lands of the Commonwealth in Jefferson County.
The plaintiff is the owner of the surface rights in a certain tract of land in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, containing approximately 3500 acres. The plaintiff acquired title to the land through nine deeds. Each of these deeds contains the same mineral reservation which is as follows: “Excepting and Reserving all the coal, oil, natural gas, and other minerals, in and under the surface of said land; together with the exclusive and perpetual right of ingress, egress and regress into and upon said lands to examine, search for, mine, manufacture and prepare said coal, oil, gas and other minerals for market; to take, remove and transport the same therefrom as well as coal, oil, gas, and other minerals from other lands; to build and construct shafts, drifts, air shafts, bore holes, gangways, headings, roads and drams, in, through, upon and under said surface; to pump water from the mines and run same on said surface; to locate and erect such fans, engines, machinery, buildings, shafts, drifts, and other structures, with the necessary curtillage, as mwy be necessary for the convenient use, ventilation and working of the mines and works appurtenant thereto and to manufacture coke; to use sufficient and convenient portions of surface to deposit dirt and waste *403from the mines, and for the location and erection of miners’ dwellings, tenements, office, stores and other buildings; without any liability whatsoever for damages to said lands or for injury to or diversion of waters flowing in, through, under and upon said land.” (Italics throughout supplied)
There is no dispute over the facts. It is stipulated: “That the said surface of the land in question is rocky, hilly and mountainous. The trees thereon are second-growth, healthy hardwood, in what is known as the pole stage, the trunks of which are six to twelve inches in diameter*. The said trees and plant life throughout the area (approximately 3500 acres) are completely suitable for game habitat, hunting and recreation and the growth is also useful and necessary for soil conservation and\ the retention of surface waters for the prevention of floods.”
The court below, affirmed by the majority, dismissed the complaint. It was decided that our decision in Commonwealth v. Fisher, 364 Pa. 422, 72 A. 2d 568, ruled this case.
It is my view that it is the interpretation of the words of a reservation alone, in a deed, which determines whether the method of removal of the coal may be by strip mining or by deep mining: Mount Carmel Railroad Company v. M. A. Hanna Company, 371 Pa. 232, 236, 89 A. 2d 508. The reservation in a deed must be construed as a whole and the intent gathered from a consideration of the entire instrument: Jamison v. Jamison, 3 Wh. 457, 470; Waugh v. Waugh, 84 Pa. 350, 357; Phillips’s Appeal, 93 Pa. 45; Brolasky’s Estate, 309 Pa. 30, 163 A. 292; Teacher v. Kijurina, 365 Pa. 480, 76 A. 2d 197; Kimmel v. Svonavec, 369 Pa. 292, 295, 85 A. 2d 146. He that runs may read that the words of the present reservation, considered from its four corners, clearly and unequivocally refer to *404deep mining and not to strip mining. Such meaning is manifest by the use of words and phrases in such writing as follows: “. . . to build and construct shafts, drifts, air shafts, bore holes, gangways, headings, roads and drains in, through, upon and under said surface; to pump water from the mines and run same on said surface; to locate and erect such fans, engines, machinery, buildings, shafts, drifts, and other structures, with the necessary curtillage, as may be necessary for the convenient use, ventilation and working of the mines and works appurtenant thereto and to manufacture coke; to use sufficient and convenient portions of surface to deposit dirt and waste from the mines, and for the location and erection of miners’ dwellings, tenements, office, stores and other buildings; without any liability whatsoever for damages to said lands or for injury to or diversion of waters flowing in, through, under and upon said land.”
The court below and the majority decide that, because the reservation states the defendants possess the right to mine all the coal in and under the surface of the land, there is granted the right to defendants to remove the coal by strip mining. With this I do not agree. Standing alone, and not in its proper context, such language might be so construed. Rut no question is raised concerning the ownership of the coal. This title the Commonwealth concedes. The single question is the permissive method of removal of the coal. It is my view that, reading the language in its entirety, the reservation relates to deep mining. If this be a correct. interpretation, then the fact that some of the coal cannot be thus. removed is immaterial; Ry implication this does not thereby authorize strip mining. ...... ..... •'
• This language necessarily must be regarded as equivocal - since- three- of- the seven Justices of this *405Court dissent. It admits of two interpretations. The words therefore are required to be construed most strongly against the grantors and more favorably to the grantee. In Klaer v. Ridgway, 86 Pa. 529, Justice (later Chief Justice) Paxson said (p. 534): “It is a familiar rule that a deed or grant must be construed most strongly against the grantor. This applies with especial force to a reservation or restriction in a deed whereby there is a withholding of something from the grant.” See also: Beeson v. Patterson, 36 Pa. 24; Collison v. Philadelphia Company, 233 Pa. 350, 82 A. 474; Ransberry v. Brodhead’s Forest and Stream Association, 315 Pa. 513, 174 A. 97; Irwin v. Hoffman, 319 Pa. 8,179 A. 41.
The ratio decidendi in Rochez Bros., Inc., v. Duricka, 374 Pa. 262, 97 A. 2d 825, was that the language of the reservation, there involved, connoted a right to remove the reserved coal by deep mining and was not broad enough to include a right to mine by the open pit or strip mining method. The same is no less true of the words employed in the reservation in the instant case.
1 would reverse the decree of the court below and remand the record with direction to grant the injunction.
Mr. Justice Jones and Mr. Justice Chidsey join in this dissent.