United States Coal v. Harrison.
| Decision Date | 29 October 1912 |
| Citation | 71 W.Va. 217 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | United States Coal & Oil Company v. Harrison. |
1. Logs and Logging Reservation of Title Unassignable License. A clause in a dead which conveys land from parents to a child as an advancement, reserving to the father and mother
"the privileges of selling and removing any timber from said land that they may desire to sell or to use and also the right of way through said lands to remove the same," does not reserve title to the timber. It creates only an unassignable
license, (p. 218).
2. Same Reservation of Unassignable License Revocation.
An attempt to assign such license revokes it, and the passage of the title to the land into the hands of a third party, by a sale, also terminates it. (p. 219).
Appeal from Circuit Court, Cabell County.
Suit by the United States Coal & Oil Company against Lem Harrison and others. Decree for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
J. sMiller and C. H. Hudson, for appellants. Vinson & Thompson and E. T. England, for appellee.
poffenbarger, Judge:
On the bill in this cause, having for its purpose cancellation of certain deeds, as clouds upon title, and inhibition of the cutting of timber by injunction, partial relief was granted by cancellation of the deeds.
The rights of the parties depend for the most part upon the interpretation of the following reservation in a deed dated June 11, 1887, by which Wm. B. Dempsey and Barbara, his wife, conveyed two tracts of land, containing 50 acres and 18 acres, respectively, to Bosa Jane Carter, their daughter, as an advancement: "And the said William B. Dempsey also reserves to himself and to his said wife the privileges of selling and removing any timber from said that they may desire to sell or to use and also the right of way through said lands to remove the same."
More than twenty years later, Sept. 23, 1907, Wm. B. Dempsey having died, the widow, Barbara deeming herself the owner of the timber, executed a deed therefor to Lem Harrison and J. M. Meeks, and, on the next day, Meeks conveyed his interest to Harrison, who with his wife, Dolly, conveyed to John M. Harrison, October 26, 1908, who, on the next day, conveyed it back to Dolly Harrison. The plaintiff in this cause, having become the owner of the Bosa J. Carter land, filed said bill, in March, 1910? and obtained an injunction to prevent the Harrisons from cutting the timber. James A. Nighbert bought the land in 1890 and took immediate actual possession thereof and the plaintiff derives its title through him. No claim to title to the timber, under the reservation, was ever asserted within the twenty year period from 1887 to 1907.
No reservation of the timber itself in express terms is found in the clause. Only sale and removal privileges are reserved, and these reservations are made in terms, indicative of intent not to subject all of the timber thereto, but only such as should be selected. Nor is there any limitation as to time of sale or removal The deed also discloses the relationship of the parties and the purpose of the...
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