Tressler Coal Mining Co. v. Klefeld
| Decision Date | 01 February 1938 |
| Docket Number | 8629. |
| Parties | TRESSLER COAL MINING CO. v. KLEFELD et al. |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
Submitted January 12, 1938.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. An appellate court will not sustain a finding denying relief to a party to a chancery cause on the theory of inequitable conduct (unclean hands), unless the evidence establishes that such party has dealt unfairly in respect of the matters involved.
2. Where a deed of trust covers several tracts of land, part of which has been leased with the consent of the deed of trust creditor, and the others remain unleased, the leased tracts are protected in equity from the operation of the deed of trust until recourse is had to the unleased tracts, in the absence of a showing that the unleased tracts are unavailable for sale under the deed of trust.
3. In a chancery cause, when lack of development of issues vital to a proper decision is disclosed by the record, the cause should be remanded for further development, if the record indicates strongly the probable existence of evidence decisive of these issues.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Barbour County.
Suit by the Tressler Coal Mining Company against Julius Klefeld and others to enjoin the sale of two tracts of coal under a deed of trust. From a decree dissolving a temporary injunction plaintiff appeals.
Reversed and remanded.
Ira E Robinson and E. Wayne Talbott, both of Philippi, for appellant.
Robert C. Morris, of Fairmont, for appellees.
The Tressler Coal Mining Company, a corporation, prosecutes this appeal from a decree of the circuit court of Barbour county dissolving a temporary injunction enjoining the sale of two tracts of coal under a certain deed of trust executed by G B. Hartley and wife to H. H. Rose, trustee, and dismissing Julius Klefeld, the transferee of the notes secured by said deed of trust, and H. H. Rose, trustee, from the suit.
It appears that on November 16, 1925, G. B. Hartley, the owner in fee of nine tracts of coal in Barbour county, W. Va., by deed of trust, his wife joining therein, conveyed the same to H. H. Rose, trustee, to secure an indebtedness of $25,000, evidenced by notes payable to the order of D. A. Maurer, the last of which was payable thirty months from the date of the deed of trust. Some time prior to October 11, 1928, Maurer transferred the notes to Julius Klefeld. On the last-mentioned date, the Hartleys and S. B. Tressler executed an instrument, whereby the former leased to the latter, for coal mining purposes, two tracts (totaling 36 acres) embraced in the deed of trust. Klefeld, by a writing dated October 24, 1928, agreed and consented, upon certain conditions set forth therein, to a mining lease entered into by the Hartleys and Tressler, "which said lease bears date the 11th day of October, 1928." Tressler, on August 1, 1934, assigned his rights under the lease to Tressler Coal Mining Company, the plaintiff herein. Payments of royalties under the lease to Klefeld having ceased for a considerable period, Rose, trustee, at direction of Klefeld, advertised the leased tracts for sale on August 9, 1935. The present suit followed.
The lease heretofore referred to provided for an actual royalty of 15 cents per net ton of coal and a minimum annual royalty of $1,500. By it the lessee agreed to pay the lessor at the rate of at least 1,350 net tons of coal per foot acre, except where the seam is less than 50 inches in thickness, or is faulty, making it unreasonably hard to mine, or where the coal is not merchantable. It was further provided therein that, when all the coal shall have been mined out of the leased premises, except 20,000 net tons, then the lessee should not be required to pay any further royalty, and the 20,000 net tons so remaining may either be operated under the provisions of the lease, except as to the payment of royalty, or the lessee may, at his option, elect to become the owner thereof, without any further payment of any kind or character, and, after all merchantable coal remaining in the leased premises, determined on the basis of 1,350 net tons per foot acre, as aforesaid, has been paid for, excepting therefrom the last 20,000 net tons aforesaid, then the lessee shall have the right to mine and remove the remainder of the coal, including the said 20,000 net tons, so paid for but not mined by said lessee without any further or other payment.
On the date of the execution, acknowledgment, and recordation of the foregoing lease, Hartley and wife and Tressler, by a second writing, referred to in the body thereof as "this supplemental memorandum and agreement," and which, by its terms, was made a part of the lease, acknowledged payment by Tressler of $5,000, $2,000 of which was a loan represented by a promissory note of even date and $3,000, an advance on royalties to become due under the lease,...
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