North Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Snowden

• Decision Date: 10 May 1862
• Citation: 42 Pa. 488
• Parties: The North Pennsylvania Coal Company <I>versus</I> Snowden.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 488

42 Pa. 488

The North Pennsylvania Coal Company versus Snowden.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 10, 1862.

CERTIORARI to the Common Pleas of Luzerne county. In Equity.

The case was argued here by Stanley Woodward, for appellants, and by Richard Brodhead and E. L. Dana, for appellees.

The opinion of the court was delivered, May 10th 1862, by STRONG, J.

The bill of the complainant charges that under a deed from Luther Jones, dated April 22d 1799, to William Hooker Smith, his heirs and assigns, and by virtue of sundry mesne conveyances, he has become the owner of certain mining rights and privileges upon a certain tract of land which it describes. These rights and privileges are stated to be "a privilege to dig and search after stone coal, or any other mineral, without interruption, molestation, denial, or hindrance, and to have free liberty to carry off any mineral, with teams or otherwise; the said Jones to have an equal right with said Smith, and to have the right of joining in partnership with said Smith." The bill further charges that, by reason of the said grant from Luther Jones, and the conveyances from the executors of the will of William Hooker Smith, the complainant became, was, and is entitled to the full possession, use, and enjoyment of the said rights and privileges, and that the defendants, contrary to equity and good conscience, and to the great wrong and injury of the complainant, have denied and resisted his right and claim to the said mining rights and privileges, and to the coal-mines and minerals on the lands, and have also denied and resisted the use, exercise, and existence of said rights, and still deny and resist the same. The bill then proposes interrogatories whether its allegations are not true. The relief prayed for is that the defendants may account for and in respect to all the mining operations conducted on the premises, and that the court may decree that the complainant is entitled to the exclusive use and enjoyment of the said mining rights and privileges, and that they are duly vested in him, and that the defendants may be enjoined against interfering with him in the lawful and proper use of said rights, and from obstructing, or in anywise preventing his exercise thereof, and from denying or resisting his said claim or right, or denying or resisting the use, exercise, or resistance thereof.

Had the Court of Common Pleas jurisdiction of such a bill in equity? It is observable that the bill does not charge that the defendants have succeeded to the rights that remained in Luther Jones, after his deed to William Hooker Smith, or that they claimed any interest in the coals or minerals in the land, or that they had ever been in possession of the land, or received any of its profits. Though it contains a prayer for an account, it lays no foundation for one, and seeks it only as a consequence of the other relief for which it prays. It is true that, by the sixth and seventh interrogatories, the defendants are required to answer whether they have not entered on the land, and usurped the mining rights and privileges, and prevented the complainant from enjoying them; but these acts are not charged, and the stating or charging part of a bill is not helped by the interrogatories: Story's Eq. 27.

Then what is the bill more than an attempt to obtain, through the decree of a chancellor, the possession and enjoyment of certain mining rights, from which he claims that he has been deforced? If those rights amount to a corporeal hereditament; if under his deeds he took an interest in the stone-coal and minerals in the land, the bill seeks to secure precisely what would be obtained by the common law action of ejectment. It is then what is sometimes called an ejectment bill, and is demurrable, and would be, even though it had charged that the defendants had got the title-deeds, and had mixed boundaries as well as prayed for a discovery, possession and account: 1 Daniels' Chan. Prac. 610, and cases referred to in the notes. Then the bill charges nothing to give the court equity jurisdiction. It at most sets up a case for which there is, and always was, a complete remedy at law. Even the title, stated by the complainant to be in himself, is a strictly legal one, whether it be a corporeal or incorporeal hereditament, or an easement. It may be admitted that a bill will lie by one tenant in common to restrain the commission or waste by his co-tenant, or to procure partition: Hawley v. Clowls, 2 Johns. Ch. Rep. 122, but even in such cases, confessedly within the jurisdiction of a court of equity, such a court will not interfere, if the complainant's title be denied, until he has vindicated it at law: 2 Atk. 280; Bishop of Ely v. Kenrick, Bunb. 322; Coxe v. Smith, 4 Johns. Ch. Rep. 271; Phelps v. Green, 3 Id. 302. It is true the court will sometimes retain the bill until the right has been tried at law. But here no tenancy in common is charged, and the bill itself, without awaiting the plea or answer of the defendants, alleges, as the gravamen of complaint, that the defendants deny the plaintiffs' title. Nor is this a case of partition. It has never been held that equity courts have jurisdiction of actions, founded on legal title, brought by one tenant in common against an alleged co-tenant to obtain possession or enjoyment of land.

And if the complainant's rights are incorporeal, rather than an interest in the coal or minerals, the case which he presents is not the less a case at law, and without the jurisdiction of a court of equity. His rights are strictly legal, and his remedies are at law. His bill does not even allege that he is without adequate remedy at law. It may be admitted that to prevent the disturbance of an acknowledged easement, a court of equity will interfere. But the right of the plaintiff must be acknowledged or established at law before he can resort to a chancellor. Mr. Justice Woodward, in Rhea v. Forsyth, 1 Wright 503, has collected numerous authorities on this subject. Others are at hand, but they are not needed. But when the complainant himself avers that his right is denied, and when that denial is the very ground of his complaint, it would be a novelty, indeed, for a court of equity to assume jurisdiction. Has it ever been supposed that one claiming a right of way over the land of another, can file a bill in equity complaining that the right which he claims is denied, and...