Bronson v. Lane
| Decision Date | 06 October 1879 |
| Citation | 91 Pa. 153 |
| Parties | Bronson <I>versus</I> Lane et al. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Before SHARSWOOD, C. J., MERCUR, GORDON, PAXSON, TRUNKEY and STERRETT, JJ. WOODWARD, J., absent
Error to the Court of Common Pleas of McKean county: Of May Term 1879, No. 180.
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David Sterrett and Joshua W. Comly, for plaintiff in error.— This oil right is but a license to take oil from the land, irrevocable, but with the common-law qualities of a license to take profits from the land of another person. The Supreme Court has never decided an oil right to be a corporeal right or interest in the soil itself: Funk v. Haldeman, 3 P. F. Smith 229; Dark v. Johnston, 5 Id. 164. As we understand these decisions it is impossible for an oil right, unaccompanied by a lease or grant of the land upon which it is to be exercised, from the nature of the oil, to be anything else than a mere incorporeal interest — a license and not an interest or estate in land. The lands were only to be used as a means of procuring the oil, from whatever source it could be obtained, by means of wells upon it. This use of the land, and the right to cut and take timber, did not convert the license into a corporeal interest: Lord Mountjoy's Case, Co. Litt. 164 b; Hanly v. Wood, 2 B. & Ald. 724. Such a license is not exclusive of the grantor, and could not be divided, but could only be used and enjoyed by the grantees acting together: Lord Mountjoy's Case, supra; Chetham v. Williamson, 4 East 469; Grubb v. Bayard, 2 Wall., Jr., 81; Caldwell v. Fulton, 7 Casey 475; Van Rensselaer v. Radcliffe, 10 Wend. 639; Lyman v. Abeel, 16 Johns. 30; Funk v. Haldeman, supra. The grants contain no words of exclusion. The grant of the oil right certainly does not authorize the grantees to divide the land into twenty-acre lots, for the purpose of taking the oil. If so, they should have contracted for such privileges, and paid therefor.
The plea of "not guilty," without a disclaimer, was an admission by the defendants that they were in possession of all of the land mentioned in the writ of ejectment: Ulsh v. Strode, 1 Harris 437; Steinmets v. Logan, 3 Watts 162; Hill v. Hill, 7 Wright 521.
William D. Brown, A. G. Olmsted and George A. Berry, for defendants in error.—The Act of April 13th 1807 was intended to make the sheriff's return evidence only of the fact and not the extent of the right of possession. An incorporeal right is invisible, has a mental existence only, cannot be delivered from hand to hand, is not the subject of bodily possession, or visible transfer. Such are not the characteristics of the rights conveyed by the deeds of Taylor. It is to be noted that these deeds convey all the oil and minerals; that for ninety-nine years the grantees have the exclusive right to the very substance. To have and to hold all the oil and mineral right in a tract of land is a conveyance of an interest in the land.
It is impossible to conceive of words better calculated than these to confer absolute dominion over the very substance of the oil and minerals. The rights of the grantees are exclusive of the grantor and of every one else, and hence are not within the class of cases which hold that a right in common is incorporeal. Their rights are not limited to persons or purposes. They are not limited as to quantity, and hence not within the principle of the Lord Mountjoy and kindred cases, where the right is to take sufficient for a specified purpose only. The grant is not only of an exclusive right, but it is in consideration of a large sum in hand paid, and hence not within the principle of Chetham v. Williamson, 4 East 469; Grub v. Bayard, 2 Wall. 81; Dark v. Johnston, 5 P. F. Smith 164, and other cases cited, where by the terms of the agreement the oil or mineral only vests in the grantee as a chattel when and as the same is taken out of the earth.
A conveyance of the exclusive right to take oil, does not differ from the right to take coal. Although a fluid, and hence of a fugitive nature, it is nevertheless a corporeal substance. It is land: Dark v. Johnston, supra; and a mineral: Funk v. Haldeman, supra; a corporeal interest: Chicago & Allegheny Oil and Mining Co. v. United States Petroleum Co., 7 P. F. Smith 83.
Leases to mine coal or dig clay are estates in land: Funk v. Haldeman, supra; Sheets v. Allen, 8 Norris 47. The general usage is for the grantee of the oil right to divide the land into convenient parcels, sub-leasing the same, and reserving a royalty or rent. To strike down such titles would destroy the oil business.
The argument in this case took a wide range, embracing many topics of great interest and importance which, however, we do not deem it necessary to consider. In the view which we take the questions involved lie in a very narrow...
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