Alabama Mineral Land Co. v. Blocton-Cahaba Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 02 March 1907
• Citation: 43 So. 831,150 Ala. 566
• Parties: ALABAMA MINERAL LAND CO. v. BLOCTON-CAHABA COAL CO.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

43 So. 831

150 Ala. 566

ALABAMA MINERAL LAND CO. v. BLOCTON-CAHABA COAL CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

March 2, 1907

Rehearing Denied May 6, 1907.

Appeal from City Court of Birmingham; Charles A. Senn, Judge.

Action by the Alabama Mineral Land Company against the Blocton-Cahaba Coal Company. From a judgment for defendant plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

This was an action for royalty on 500,000 tons of coal, under a lease between the parties. The defense set up was that this amount was retained to reimburse defendant for its half of the cost in grading and surfacing a branch railroad, to be built from the main line of the Southern Railway Company, to the mines operated by the defendant under the lease. To this plea the plaintiff replied, in effect, that the Southern Railway Company had reimbursed defendant for all the money paid out by it for the construction of said railroad, and that defendant had not expended any money in that direction and hence this plaintiff was not liable to the defendant for one-half of the cost for the construction of said railroad under the terms of the lease contract.

Blackwell & Agee, for appellant.

Pery &amp Benners and S.D. Logan, for appellee.

ANDERSON J.

Paragraph 3 of the lease is as follows: "The party of the second part shall pay to the party of the first part a rent or royalty of (7) seven cents per ton of two thousand (2,000) pounds on all coal mined of every quality and description but an allowance of (1) cent per ton shall be made to lessee until sufficient tonnage has been mined, figured at one cent per ton, to cover one-half the cost of proposed branch railroad to be built to said land (which branch railroad is estimated to cost about $32,766 for 7,713 feet of grading trestling, etc., the cost of track not to be considered): provided, however, that, irrespective of the tonnage mined, such royalty of six (6) cents per ton shall not continue for more than seven (7) years from December 30, 1900." It is unnecessary for us to determine whether the lease required the plaintiff to pay one-half the cost of the branch line constructed, irrespective of what it may have cost the defendant, or whether it was to pay only one-half of what it actually cost the defendant; for, giving the plaintiff the benefit of a construction most favorable to it, and conceding that the contract meant that plaintiff was to reimburse the defendant by a reduction of one cent per ton on the royalty price, not to exceed a period of seven years, only to the extent of one-half of what the branch line actually...