Court Opinion

ID: 9588638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:36:34.649189+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:59.786631
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RUSSELL,
with whom JUSTICE STEPHENSON joins, dissenting.
In Stonegap C. Co. v. Hamilton, 119 Va. 271, 89 S.E. 305 (1916), we approved an instruction which told the jury that, where mineral rights have been conveyed to a party other than the owner of the surface, the surface “must be protected at all hazards,” and that the surface “extends down to the very top of the underlying coal, including all strata over it, even slate and rock.” Id. at 294, 89 S.E. at 312. We quoted, with approval, authority which stated, “[a] reservation of all minerals or of the right of mining must always respect the surface rights of support. . . . [A]n absolute right to surface support is not to be taken away by mere implication .... Therefore, a grant of minerals by the owner of the soil does not give to the grantee the right to allow the surface to fall in." Id. at 288-89, 89 S.E. at 310. (Emphasis added.)
The majority makes no effort to overrule Stonegap and its progeny, and impliedly concedes that a surface owner’s right of subjacent support continues to be, in Virginia, an absolute property right. Nevertheless, the majority opinion refuses to grant injunc*150tive relief to the surface owner, even where the evidence is undisputed that “longwall” mining will cause the surface to subside into five swales, each three feet deep, 600 to 700 feet wide, and 3,000 to 5,000 feet long, crossing the surface owner’s property.
Recognizing that injunctive relief would be appropriate if “the wrong is one that would cause irreparable injury and the wrong is actually threatened or apprehended with reasonable probability,” the majority thinks that those conditions have not been shown in this case. I must confess my inability to follow the majority’s reasoning. The subsidence is surely “irreparable”; the coal company makes no showing of any intention to restore the land to its former condition after it has removed all the coal and departed. The surface owner’s “apprehension” is surely based upon “reasonable probability”; the coal company frankly states its intention to remove all subjacent support as soon as it is permitted to do so. The only remaining basis for refusing injunctive relief can be the majority’s implicit conclusion that the surface owner will suffer no “injury.” But the destruction of an absolute property right is, in itself, an injury subject to injunctive relief.
It is very true that a court of equity will not, as a general rule, interpose in the case of a mere naked trespass. There must be something more to call forth its interference. But where the act done or threatened to be done would be destructive of the substance of the estate, or if repeated acts of wrong are done or threatened to be done, or the injury is or would be irreparable, whenever, indeed, the remedy at law is or would be inadequate, a court of equity will put forth its restraining hand and enjoin the perpetration of the wrong and prevent the injury.
Miller v. Wills, 95 Va. 337, 339, 28 S.E. 337, 338 (1897) (citations omitted).
The foregoing principles are alone sufficient to warrant injunctive relief on the facts of this case. The majority opinion, however, goes further. It finds the evidence sufficient to support the trial court’s finding that the apprehended subsidence would not damage the surface “to any appreciable degree.” That finding was in turn based upon the coal company’s expert testimony to that effect. Any testimony, however, that subsidence of the kind described here will not adversely affect wells, springs, surface watercourses, *151surface drainage, erosion control, growing crops, and the roots of trees is, in my view, incredible. Such testimony serves to prove the theory that “experts” can be found to support any proposition, if a sufficiently diligent search is made. Indeed, the undisputed evidence shows that the coal company’s operations will effectively duplicate the consequences of a major earthquake.
I would reverse and remand for the entry of appropriate injunctive relief.