Court Opinion

ID: 9856849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:01:49.491852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:26.703813
License: Public Domain

OLIVER, District Judge
(dissenting).
My dissent is directed to that portion of the majority opinion which deals with Paragraph 16 of the lease entered into between plaintiff and defendant. The majority opinion would limit the rights of the state under that paragraph to simply the reservation of the right to grant rights of way across defendant’s leasehold to other lessees or permittees to reach adjacent land containing mineral deposits and to cross the *584defendant’s leasehold to ship minerals mined on other leaseholds to market. I cannot agree. The paragraph of the lease in question reads:
“That there is expressly reserved the right to permit for joint use such easement or right of way upon, through or in the lands hereby leased, occupied or used as may be necessary or appropriate to the working of the same or of other lands containing mineral deposits, and the treatment and shipment of products thereof by or under authority of the lessor, its lessees or permittees, and for other public purposes.”
I cannot see where there is any ambiguity in such paragraph requiring construction by the Court. Where language in a written instrument is clear and unambiguous, the Court should give effect to the language employed according to its literal and ordinary meaning. It is my opinion that the reservation of rights by plaintiff in the subject lease, clearly and unambiguously reserved to the plaintiff a right of way for “public purposes” across defendant’s leasehold. It cannot be argued that right of way for highway purposes is not a public purpose.
I ask the majority — in what different manner could the State have protected itself in those leases without spelling out each and every possible “public purpose” that could be contemplated by legal scholars? The majority states:
“To read the phrase ‘and for other public purposes’ literally, as the state would have us read it here, would mean that the state could grant a leasehold one day and appropriate the entire leasehold the next day without any liability to the lessee as long as the appropriation were for a public purpose.”
I ask, why shouldn’t the lease be read literally? Defendant acquired the leasehold from the State for a minimal 25^ per acre per year, plus 10(S per yard royalty. Should defendant choose not to. extract gravel, no royalties are payable. It seems incredible to me that the defendant should receive all but a fee interest in the. leasehold for the term of theTease for a mere 25 jí per acre rental. Such a minimal rental must of necessity presuppose the possible reacquisition of a portion of the leasehold by plaintiff for “public purposes.”
In the present case, defendant paid plaintiff per acre per year for the 10.61 acres taken for right of way and in return was awarded by the trial court $19,750.00 for such taking. The majority by non literal construction of the lease reservations, considers this equitable.
It is my conclusion that Paragraph 16 of the lease between plaintiff and defendant reserved to plaintiff the right to reacquire from the leasehold, rights of way for highway purposes.
The judgment of the trial court should be modified by ordering a remittitur in the amount of $19,750.00 and as so modified, affirmed.