United Thacker Coal Co. v. Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Co.

• Decision Date: 04 March 1916
• Docket Number: 1403.
• Citation: 232 F. 49
• Parties: UNITED THACKER COAL CO. v. RED JACKET, JR., COAL CO. et al. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

232 F. 49

UNITED THACKER COAL CO. v. RED JACKET, JR., COAL CO. et al. ^[1]

No. 1403.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

March 4, 1916

This is an appeal from a decree of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia, entered on the 6th day of February, 1915, in a suit in equity in which the United Thacker Coal Company, a corporation, was complainant, and the Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company, a corporation, and Richard Torpin, George Wharton Pepper, and Richard H. Harte were defendants. The appellant will hereinafter be referred to as complainant, and the appellees as defendants, such being the respective positions occupied by the parties in the court below.

The complainant, being in the actual possession of the tract of land which it claims, filed its bill to quiet its title against the claims of the trustees and their lessee, the Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company, to any part of the tract. The bill avers that it is seised in fee simple and in the actual possession of the land in question. It states the grant of the same to the plaintiff by the state of West Virginia avers that the trustees are claiming to own in fee simple a large part of said tract, containing by estimation about 250 acres; states that the claim of the trustees is derived under the grant of 440 2/3 acres to J. D. Sargeant, and that they claim said tract interlocks with said 382 1/2-acre tract sets out the said mining lease of January 1, 1909, from the trustees to the Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company, and avers said lessee claims the right under said lease to enter upon and mine the coal in said interlock; states that the trustees caused to be made what they claim to be a survey of said 440 2/2-acre tract in such manner as to embrace about 250 acres of said 382 1/2-acre tract, and caused to be marked the lines of such purported survey by painting trees along the same avers that there is in fact no interlock between said 440 2/3 acres and said 382 1/2-acre tract; avers that the claims made by the defendants of the existence of said interlock, their survey of such an interlock by painting the trees on the ground, and their claim of title by the execution of said mining lease have cast a cloud upon the title of the plaintiff; and avers that said land is valuable alone for its coal and timber. The prayer of the bill is that the plaintiff be decreed to have title to its said tract of 382 1/2 acres and be quieted in the possession thereof.

The trustees and the Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company united in the answer filed to the bill. In paragraph 5 of the answer a motion is made to dismiss the bill for want of jurisdiction and in paragraph 6 an alternative motion was made to transfer the cause to the law side of the court, if the motion to dismiss should be overruled. The defendants filed their joint and several answer, wherein they admitted the pendency of the suit of the state of West Virginia against the unknown heirs of John Green et al., the decree of sale therein on the 23d day of February, 1912, the sale thereunder and the purchase of the land in question by the complainant, the confirmation thereof by decree of April 20, 1912, and the conveyance pursuant thereto by S. B. Robertson, commissioner, to the complainant, but denied that the state of West Virginia had any authority, power, or jurisdiction to sell said land so claimed by the complainant, because she had at a former date and in a like proceeding parted with all her right, title, and interest therein to one J. D. Sargeant, from and through whom the trustee defendants had acquired title thereto, and were still the owners thereof.

The owner alleged that on the 3d day of July, 1888, in a certain proceeding then pending in the circuit court of Logan county (of which Mingo county was then a part), having for its object the sale of certain lands for the benefit of the school fund, a decree was entered directing the commissioner of school lands to sell a tract of 440 2/3 acres of land situate on Mate and Pigeon creeks; that, pursuant to said decree of sale, one L. D. Chambers, then the commissioner of school lands for Logan county, on the 2d of October, 1888, sold said land, and J. D. Sargeant became the purchaser thereof; that afterwards--that is to say, on the 3d day of October, 1888-- a decree was entered in said cause confirming the sale so made to J. D. Sargeant, and directing the commissioner of school lands to execute to Sargeant a deed therefor by metes and bounds, conveying all the right, title, and interest of the state in and to said tract of land; that subsequently, and pursuant to said decree of confirmation, the said L. D. Chambers, commissioner of school lands as aforesaid, did, on the 5th day of October, 1888, grant said land by metes and bounds unto the said J. D. Sargeant by deed regularly executed, delivered, and recorded, and that the said Sargeant subsequently conveyed said land to Richard Torpin et al., trustees, which said trustees, by subsequent conveyances, transferred to the present trustees, who are now vested with the title to said land and are the owners thereof; and that they were the owners of said land at the time of the decree of sale entered on the 23d day of February, 1912, in the suit of the state of West Virginia against the unknown heirs of John Green et al., as well as on the 20th day of April, 1912, when the decree of confirmation was entered in said suit, and also upon the 2d day of May, 1912, when S. B. Robertson, commissioner of school lands, conveyed said 382 1/2-acre tract unto the plaintiff.

The owner further alleged that the complainant, the United Thacker Coal Company, which purchased under the decree of February 23, 1912, its agent and attorney, Edward C. Lyon, the special commissioner making the sale, and the commissioner of school lands, S. B. Robertson, who conveyed the same unto the complainant, one and all knew that the state of West Virginia had theretofore sold said land, and that the same, or so much thereof as conflicted or interlocked with the land now claimed by the complainant, had been regularly conveyed by L. D. Chambers, commissioner of school lands of the county of Logan, unto the said Sargeant, and that the title so vested in him had been transferred to the trustee defendants in this cause, and notice of said prior sale and the present ownership of the land in question was given by the trustee defendants to the said court commissioner, the commissioner of school lands, the United Thacker Coal Company, and its agents, on the day of sale under the decree of February 23, 1912, and before said sale was made, and that the United Thacker Coal Company purchased said land with full knowledge of the claim and ownership of the defendant trustees.

The defendants further answered that they had entered upon said lands and caused the same to be surveyed, and had leased the same to their codefendant, the Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company, and that they had leased the same to said company in conjunction with another and adjoining tract of land, upon which the Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company had already entered and was mining coal, and that said Red Jacket, Jr., Coal Company, by virtue of said lease, has the right to mine and remove all the coal from the land in controversy.

A general replication was entered, and evidence, both oral and documentary, was introduced. The regularity of the proceedings by the state in both cases leading to the school land commissioner's deed, in the one case to the complainant, and in the other to the defendants, was admitted, and the location of the tract of land claimed by the defendants and described in the deed of October 5, 1888, from Chambers, school land commissioner, to J. D. Sargeant, became the sole issue.

The court below located the land of the defendants embraced in the Sargeant deed as contended for by the defendants, and entered a decree declaring that the complainant had no title to or interest in any portion of the 440 2/3-acre tract of land claimed by the trustee defendants, except a small portion thereof where the line of the Chambers deed crosses the Pat Hatfield tract, claimed by plaintiff under another and undisputed title, which portion was excepted in the decree by metes and bounds.

While, among other things, it is stated in the motion to transfer the case to the law side of the court that the bill does not show the plaintiff to be in possession of the land in controversy, yet there is no denial in the answer to the allegation in the bill that the complainant is in the actual possession of the 382 1/2-acre tract.

Malcolm Jackson, of Charleston, W. Va., and C. ton, W. Va., and C. W. Campbell, of Huntington, W.Va. (Edward C. Lyon, of New York City, Brown, Jackson & Knight, of Charleston, W. Va., and Campbell, Brown & Davis, of Huntington, W. Va., on the brief), for appellant.

John H. Holt, of Huntington, W.Va. (E. L. Greever, of Tazewell, Va., Maurice G. Belknap, of Philadelphia, Pa., Greever, Gillespie & Divine, of Welch, W. Va., and Holt, Duncan & Holt, of Huntington, W. Va., on the brief), for appellees.

Before PRITCHARD, KNAPP, and WOODS, Circuit Judges.

PRITCHARD Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).

At the trial the complainant introduced the original survey and plat of the 440 2/3-acre tract, which are referred to and made a part of the grant of this tract from Chambers, commissioner to J. D. Sargeant. This survey commenced at the white oak corner of the Preston Smith survey, and thence runs with three lines of that survey; then runs eight independent lines until it reaches the Richard Tiller survey; thence with that survey until it calls for 'a stake on the line of a survey made for Ephraim Hatfield'; thence runs with one line of the...