Elkhorn City Land Co. v. Elkhorn City

• Decision Date: 09 October 1970
• Citation: 459 S.W.2d 762
• Parties: ELKHORN CITY LAND COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. ELKHORN CITY, a Municipal Corporation, Appellee.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 762

459 S.W.2d 762

ELKHORN CITY LAND COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. ELKHORN CITY, a Municipal Corporation, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Oct. 9, 1970.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 18, 1970.

Jean L. Auxier, Pikeville, for appellant.

clyde Mullins, Jack T. Page, Pikeville, for appellee.

RAYMOND C. STEPHENSON, Special Commissioner.

The parties herein are disputing the extent of the rights granted by the appellant land company to the appellee city in a deed of October 26, 1943, which contained the following covenants pertinent to this dispute:

1. 'The property herein conveyed is to be used for waterworks purposes only, and when abandoned as such is to revert to party of the first part herein, its successors or assigns.'

2. 'The coal, oil, gas and minerals and mineral substances with free right to mine, and market the same, are not conveyed in this deed.'

Soon after the date of this deed the city constructed on the property a water intake and pumping station along the river near the east property line. A reservoir was constructed on the hill, generally in the central part of the subject tract. A municipal water system was operated with these basic facilities until the early 1950's. About 1953 or 1954 a water filter plant was constructed on the tract just west of the water intake.

On June 16, 1953, the city purchased additional property from the land company on which it constructed a new reservoir. The use of the old reservoir was closed about 1956, but the municipal water system has been operated up to the present time by means of a water intake, pumping station and filter plant located on the tract purchased by the original deed dated October 26, 1943, in conjunction with the reservoir located on the land purchased in 1953.

In 1967 the Department of Highways undertook to reconstruct part of Kentucky Highway 80, which involved construction just north of the property in question, and the Saltsman Construction Company, contractor on the project, needed fill material. The city then sold fill material to this construction company and, because the land company claimed the right to sell said material, an agreement was entered into providing that the sums payable by the contractor would be placed in escrow until the dispute between the city and the land company was resolved. The fill material was identified as 'medium hard, dark gray sandy shale and sandy clay loam.' The contract prohibited the construction company from removing earth or fill material from the premises lower than the elevation of the new roadway and bridge approach and required it after such removal to grade, level and seed the property.

The land company contends that the city has abandoned the use of the disputed tract of land for waterworks purposes. It is not disputed that the property in question has been used continuously as a source of water for the city since 1943. The trial court properly concluded that the city had not abandoned the granted tract for waterworks purposes. The essential elements of abandonment were not established by the land company's evidence. See Sandy River Co. v. Champion Bridge Co., 243 Ky. 424, 48 S.W.2d 1062 (1932). The intention to abandon must be shown by 'clear, unequivocal and decisive evidence' in order for an abandonment to be established. Cameron v. Lebow, Ky., 366 S.W.2d 164, 165 (1962). In view of the undisputed fact that the water intake, pumping station and filter plant were an integral part of the waterworks system for the city, the contention that the tract of land on which these facilities were located had been abandoned for waterworks purposes is without merit.

The land company further contends that the city's act of selling almost a hundred thousand cubic yards of land-fill material and causing it to be severed and...