Easley v. Melton
| Decision Date | 04 December 1953 |
| Citation | 262 S.W.2d 686 |
| Parties | EASLEY et al. v. MELTON et al. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Kentucky |
Bullitt, Dawson & Tarrant, R. Lee Blackwell, Louisville, Sam T. Jarvis, Greenville, for appellant.
King & Craig, Henderson, for appellee.
McDonald & McDonald, Lexington, amici curiae.
This is an action in equity under the declaratory judgment act by the plaintiffs-appellees for a declaration of rights as to the ownership of the oil and gas underneath 40 acres of land located in Webster County, Kentucky. The sole question presented on this appeal is whether a deed of 'the coal and mining rights' in real estate should be construed to include the oil and gas rights therein.
On October 17, 1902, appellees' predecessors in title executed a deed in favor of appellants' predecessors in title. The deed described three tracts of land, one of which contained 40 acres, the subject of this controversy. The deed contained the following pertinent language:
'Said parties of the first part do hereby grant, bargain, sell and convey unto the Sebree Coal Company, the coal and mining rights in and to the following described three tracts * * *.
'To have and to hold the coal rights in and to the above described land unto the said Sebree Coal Company and its assigns forever.'
Oil has recently been discovered upon the land involved, and the appellees, the plaintiffs below, whose predecessors in title were the grantors in the 1902 deed, asked the court to declare they were the owners of the oil and gas because, as they maintain, the deed did not convey those substances in title. The parties stipulated that an actual controversy existed as to the ownership of the oil and gas. The trial court decided, as a matter of law, that the deed did not convey the oil and gas, but that the conveyance was limited to the coal and the incidental rights of its removal, and this appeal followed.
Whether the oil and gas rights are included is a question of construction to be determined by the modern test of ascertaining the intent of the parties from the instrument as a whole, rather than that, as laid down by Lord Coke, the granting clause may not be cut down by the habendum, but the habendum may enlarge the granting clause. American Law of Property, Section 10.6. This modern view, the intention to be gathered from the whole instrument is the standard rule of construction now applied to deeds in this jurisdiction. Sherman v. Petroleum Exploration, 280 Ky. 105, 132 S.W.2d 768, 132 A.L.R. 137; Howard v. Gross, 287 Ky. 415, 153 S.W.2d 989; Hays v. Kentucky-West Virginia Gas Co., 290 Ky. 174, 160 S.W.2d 376; ...
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...when following a reference to a specific hard mineral, is not generally understood in this state as including oil and gas. In Easley v. Melton, Ky., 262 S.W.2d 686, we found it unnecessary to determine whether "coal and mining rights" included oil and gas, because the habendum clause of the......
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Yunker's Co-Executors v. Mason
...is committed to the rule of construction that the intention of the parties is to be gathered from the instrument as a whole. Easley v. Melton, Ky., 262 S.W.2d 686. Hence, each case must depend upon the language used in the particular The majority of this Court, not including the writer of t......