Benson v. The Miners' Bank
| Decision Date | 21 March 1853 |
| Citation | 20 Pa. 370 |
| Parties | Benson <I>versus</I> The Miners' Bank. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
A deed of grant for a tract of land particularly described, but with a clause in these words, "excepting and for ever reserving the liberties and privileges for the heirs and legal representatives of Samuel Potts, deceased, to dig, take, and haul away all the stone coal that is or may hereafter be found on the above-described tract of land," would seem intended to be a conveyance to the grantee of the land, but of no part of the stone coal. Yet the deed of Lewis Reese to Andrew Kepner, of the 4th of November, 1811, with this comprehensive exception fully expressed therein, was construed to be a conveyance, not only of the land, but of one-fifth of the stone coal on the tract.
At the date of this conveyance, four-fifths of the coal were vested in the heirs and devisees of Samuel Potts, deceased, and one-fifth in the grantor, Lewis Reese; and hence the Court argued, that it was not supposable that Reese intended to reserve for those heirs a greater interest than they had, and therefore he must have intended to convey his one-fifth to Kepner.
If at liberty to speculate about the intention of the grantor, we might ask why it is not as supposable that he intended to vest his fifth in the heirs of Samuel Potts, from one of whom he had received it, as in Kepner? Or, seeing that he used the word "representatives" as well as heirs, a word which the Court seem to have overlooked, why may we not presume that by virtue of the mesne conveyances he regarded himself as a "representative" of Samuel Potts, and that his exception and reservation were intended to operate in favor of the heirs as to four-fifths, and in favor of himself as to the other fifth of the coal? Either of these presumptions is more reasonable than that set up in favor of Kepner, because they are favored by the words of the deed, while the other is directly opposed to the language of the instrument. Had it been an absolute deed, without any exception whatever, it would have been a desperate assumption that he intended that his fifth of the coal should go to those heirs instead of his grantee; yet it would have conflicted no more directly with the terms of the conveyance than...
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Hummel v. McFadden
... ... land constituted a corporeal right. Benson v. Miners' ... Bank, 20 Pa. 370. Caldwell v. Fulton, 31 Pa ... 475 [5] is the landmark decision ... ...
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Hummel v. McFadden
...in effect, that an unrestricted right to take and carry away all the coal under a tract of land constituted a corporeal right. Benson v. Miners' Bank, 20 Pa. 370. Caldwell v. Fulton, 31 Pa. 475 5 is the landmark decision on the interpretation of a mining agreement as a sale of coal in place......
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...to mine and remove minerals results in a mere license. Such an instrument severs the mineral rights from the surface estate. Benson v. Miners' Bank, 20 Pa. 370; Caldwell v. Fulton, 31 Pa. 475, 72 Am.Dec. 760; Delaware & H. Canal Co. v. Hughes, 183 Pa. 66, 38 A. 568; Lee v. Bumgardner, 86 Va......
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...nature of the contract between the parties. The seminal Pennsylvania cases construing the nature of mining agreements are Benson v. Miners' Bank, 20 Pa. 370 (1853), which held that an unrestricted right to take and carry away all the coal under a tract of land constitutes a corporeal right,......