Thomas v. Gates

• Decision Date: 09 April 1929
• Docket Number: No. 2791.,2791.
• Citation: 31 F.2d 828
• Parties: THOMAS v. GATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

31 F.2d 828 (1929)

THOMAS v. GATES.

No. 2791.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

April 9, 1929.

J. P. Buchanan, of Marion, Va. (Buchanan & Buchanan, of Marion, Va., on the brief), for appellant.

John Paul and John T. Harris, both of Harrisonburg, Va., for appellee.

Before WADDILL and PARKER, Circuit Judges, and MEEKINS, District Judge.

WADDILL, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, entered in a suit by appellee against appellant involving timber rights on land located in Smyth county, Va., Henry C. McDowell, District Judge.

The facts are: On March 21, 1903, James Long, then owner of a 9,000-acre tract of land in Smyth county, Va., together with W. P. Bonbright, trustee, who was mortgagee of the property, entered into an agreement in writing with Chas. McCafferty for the sale of the timber on the land. No provision was contained in the contract limiting the time within which the timber was to be cut and removed from said land. The agreement provided that, when the purchase price of the timber had been fully paid, a deed to the timber would be delivered to McCafferty. McCafferty then assigned all his rights under said contract, and, after several subsequent assignments thereof, the timber rights to about 3,500 acres of the original tract, the subject of this litigation, were, by deed dated June 24, 1920, conveyed by Florence R. Shapley to J. E. Thomas, appellant. The legal title to the land had, in the meantime, become vested in Jay Gates, trustee, complainant, and appellee herein.

On December 22, 1925, Gates, trustee, instituted this suit in equity against Thomas to have declared void as a cloud upon his (Gates') title, the instruments upon which Thomas based his title to the timber (that is, the deed from E. Cooper Shapley and wife to A. Heald & Co., and from Florence R. Shapley to J. E. Thomas); complainant's contention being that, when his predecessor in title sold the timber on the land in 1903, the sale was of the then growing timber, with the right in the purchaser to remove it within a reasonable time. The defendant Thomas insists that the sale made in 1903 to his predecessor in title was a sale in perpetuity of the timber on the entire tract of land, including the timber on the 3,500 acres, the subject of this suit.

Upon full consideration of the case, the trial court decided that the effect of the original instrument conveying the timber was to convey the then growing timber, with a reasonable time allowed to remove the same, and that it did not purport to, and did not grant an indefinite and perpetual right to allow the timber to remain on the land unsevered and unremoved, and the court so decreed. The court further held, however, that, inasmuch as the complainant had not, before bringing suit, informed Thomas of his position in the matter, and given him an opportunity to remove the timber, Thomas should have fifteen months from the date of the decree in which to remove any remaining timber. From this decree, the defendant appealed, assigning error.

The assignments of error are four in number, and are as follows:

"1. Because the Court permitted the introduction of parol testimony to assist the Court in the construction of the written papers which are the basis of the cause of action of the complainant, they being plain and unambiguous, upon their face.

"2. Because the Court in its final order decreed that under the title papers of the defendants, J. E. Thomas, he did not take an absolute title to the timber conveyed to him by Florence R. Shapley by deed dated the 24 day of June 1920.

"3. Because in its final order the Court decreed that J. E. Thomas had only a reasonable time in which to recover the timber described and conveyed to him in the deed from Florence R. Shapley dated the 24th day of June, 1920.

"4. Because the Court only allowed J. E. Thomas fifteen months from the date of the final order in which to remove the timber conveyed to him by Florence R. Shapley aforesaid on the land described in the foregoing deed from Florence R. Shapley."

The second and third assignments are mainly relied upon for review and reversal of the trial court's action complained of. The question presented by these two important assignments will be at once considered, as upon their correctness the merits of this appeal turn.

Appellant, in his brief, says, at page 4: "The construction of the language used in the above contract and deed is the matter for the determination of the Court in this proceeding; the question being whether under these two instruments, the grantee, McCafferty, acquired a fee simple to the timber or whether he acquired title to only so much of the timber as he could remove in a reasonable time."

The appellee, at page 4 of his brief, says: "As before stated, the questions before this Court are within narrow limits and relate, in the main, to a determination of whether or not when this timber was originally sold in 1903 it was intended by the parties that a right in perpetuity in the timber was created in the purchasers."

The questions thus presented, viz. the rights of purchasers of growing timber under contracts providing for the sale thereof, without making provision as to the cutting and removal of the same, the time within which it should be done, and the effect of failure so to do, have given rise to much litigation in the courts of Virginia. While the decisions may not have been always uniform, still, running through them all, will be found a line of demarcation that makes it clear that the rights of the respective parties, the landowner and the purchaser of timber rights, must each be determined with due regard to those of the other.

The correct solution of the problem thus presented is frequently not free from difficulty, and each case has to be considered and passed upon in the light of its peculiar facts and circumstances, including especially all of the provisions of contracts, deeds or title papers tending to throw light on the particular transaction.

To grant the contention of the holder of the timber rights that, when no provision limiting his interest in the matter of duration, and extent of occupancy of the land upon which the timber stands, is contained in the contract of sale, the omission operates, in effect, to vest in the purchaser of the timber, rights to both the land and the timber, would be to place an incorrect and unreasonable interpretation upon such transaction; and hence the courts have been forced to the conclusion that, where the claim of the purchaser of the timber is plainly not a grant in perpetuity, having regard to the rights of both landowner and timber right purchaser, the right to the timber should be held to be one to be exercised within a reasonable time. This would seem to be well settled by the Virginia authorities, and this court would be bound thereby even if the correctness, justice, and fairness of the same did not commend itself to our judgment.

The provisions of the contract of March 31, 1903, and of the deed executed in pursuance thereof on November 18, 1908, admittedly prescribe no time within which the timber should be cut and removed from the land, and the provisions respecting entry upon the land to cut and remove the same, the construction and subsequent removal of buildings temporarily erected during such period of removal, and relating to rights of way, easements, and privileges upon and over the land for the laying of tracks for hauling the timber from the land, when construed together, are manifestly more in accord with the theory of a sale of the timber, with a reasonable time within which to remove the same, than with that of a sale of the timber in perpetuity.

We are convinced that a sale of the timber in perpetuity was not contemplated between the parties, but that, on the contrary, the contract should be construed as providing by implication for a reasonable time for the severance and removal of the timber.

The learned Judge of the trial court, in construing the contract of sale in this case, said: "In the case at bar, in my opinion, the parties did not `clearly intend' and certainly did not `definitely express' an intention that the vendees of the timber and their successors should have a perpetual right to allow the timber, or any part of it, to remain unsevered and unremoved. On the other hand, in the light of the documentary and oral evidence, it seems clear that the vendees of the...