Court Opinion

ID: 6231704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-02-17 20:23:28.663682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:53.586365
License: Public Domain

Concurring opinion delivered, March 27th 1862, by
Woodward, J.
I concur in the judgment of the majority, on the ground that the plaintiff’s action was misconceived. I hold that trover was not his appropriate remedy. A few words will suffice to exhibit my views.
Petroleum, or, as it is called in the West Indies, Barbadoes tar, is a species of mineral, which, while it exists in its natural deposits in the earth, is included in the very comprehensive idea which the law attaches to the word land. It is part of the land. It is land. As such it belonged to Peterson, in the place whore the present dispute arose. He held it by the same title by which he held the surface, or the salt which underlay the surface. He was absolute proprietor of all things between the surface and centre of the earth at that place, saving only the government’s right to share in the gold and silver that might be found. It was his freehold, and the petroleum and the salt were parts of the freehold.
By the article of agreement of October 30th 1837, he leased the premises to Thomas and Samuel M. ICier, for purposes of salt-wells. Under certain conditions and restrictions the lease was to endure as long as the salt-wells should be carried on by the ICiers, the survivor of them or their assigns. The rent reserved was every twelfth barrel of salt made on the premises. It was in effect and substance a sale of the crude salt in the land for one-twelfth of the manufactured article. Now, there is no doubt that the absolute owner of land may sell a partial interest in it as well as the whole. He may sell the surface and retain the minerals, or he may sell one or more of the minerals and retain *363the surface. This is every day’s experience in the mining districts.
But it is self-evident that when he carves out a particular interest and sells it, he retains all the rest as absolutely as before he conveyed a part. Therefore I cannot doubt that Peterson was as exclusively and as absolutely the owner of the petroleum in this land after the lease of October 30th 1837 as before. There is not a word in the instrument which imports his intention to part with anything more than the salt in his land, and such timber and stones as should be necessary for erecting and maintaining saltworks. Every matter and thing in, and pertaining to the land which was not conveyed to the Kiers by that instrument was retained by Peterson.
But the Kiers could not exercise their right to raise salt without raising petroleum. They severed both the salt and the petroleum from the freehold, and brought both to their lawful possession at the surface. They were not trespassers. The severance of the petroleum was an inevitable incident of their exercise of clearly granted rights. The grant of the fight to take salt was the grant of all incidental rights which were indispensable to the exercise of the main one. Hence, their severance of the petroleum from the freehold, and their possession of it, were lawful. The work of separating the oil and salt was not difficult. With opportunity given them the fluids would separate themselves. But the Kiers, in lawful possession of both before separation, were to control the work of separation, and were in kwful -possession of each after that work was accomplished. For this reason I hold the action of trover will not lie. Although Peterson had not lost his right of property in the petroleum, yet a mere right of property in a chattel is not sufficient to maintain trover. The plaintiff must have also the right of possession at the time of conversion: 1 Chit. PI. 164; Saunders P. & E. 1138. In Mather v. Trinity Church, 3 S. & R. 509, the principle was carried further still, and it was held, that trover for stone and gravel dug from land, does not lie by one who has the right of possession, against a person who has actual adverse possession of the land and sets up title to it. In our case, Peterson -had no right of possession of the land whatever, and the Kiers were not in as mere adverse holders, but Peterson had conveyed the right of possession to them, and they were in under and according to his title. Nor were they guilty of waste in severing the petroleum from the freehold, since it was an inseparable consequence from the right granted to them by the landlord. Their actual possession, therefore, of the severed chattel, was in every sense a rightful possession, and, because no right of possession existed in Peterson at the moment of severance, trover will not lie.
On this ground alone I am for reversing the judgment. I hold *364Peterson entitled to compensation for the value of his oil, and I suppose a bill in equity for account, would be his most natural and efficacious remedy. I think the learned judge below apprehended correctly the measure of compensation. Peterson would not be entitled to the labour of the Kiers, but only to the value of the oil at the instant of separation from the freehold. But his remedy, whatever the extent of it, is to be sought in another form of action.