Court Opinion

ID: 9552910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:19:10.03828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:20.912764
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE MORRISON
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
In my opinion this case does not involve interpretation of the deed’s mineral reservation. No reasonable construction could reach a result whereby “resource inventories” are included within the language “exploring for” minerals. The right to enter to compile resource inventories must exist in*212dependent of the right to enter for exploration and must depend upon and be incidental to a right to mine. The majority correctly could imply reservation if there was a right to strip-mine.
The law is clear. The majority correctly notes: “In 1975, an additional statutory requirement was adopted that when the surface owner is not the owner of the mineral estate proposed to be mined by strip-mining operations, the application for a stripmining permit must include the written consent or waiver by the owners of the surface lands involved to enter and commence stripmining operations on the land, * * *” Genie Land has refused to give permission to Western Energy Company to strip-mine. Western Energy does not have the right to enter for purposes of stripmining and, therefore, has no incidental right to enter for purposes of compiling resource inventories.
The effect of the majority decision is to say, “although you have no deeded right to enter for the purpose of conducting resource inventories and although under the law you have no right to strip-mine without the owner’s consent, we will imply a right to enter for resource inventory because resource inventories were unknown at the time the deed was executed, and since such inventories were unknown, it must have been within the contemplation of the parties that, had they been known, they would have been included.” I cannot understand this reasoning process. I can see no basis whatever, either in the deed or in law, for the result which the majority reaches.
I would reverse and remand with directions to proceed in conformity with this dissent.