Warrior Coal & Coke Co. v. Mabel Min. Co.

• Decision Date: 12 November 1896
• Citation: 112 Ala. 624,20 So. 918
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: WARRIOR COAL & COKE CO. v. MABEL MIN. CO.

20 So. 918

112 Ala. 624

WARRIOR COAL & COKE CO. v. MABEL MIN. CO.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 12, 1896

Appeal from circuit court, Jefferson county; John C. Anderson Judge.

Action by the Warrior Coal & Coke Company against the Mabel Mining Company. From the judgment, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

This was an action of trespass, brought by the appellant against the appellee, and was tried by the court, without the intervention of a jury. The plaintiff appeals, and assigns as error the rulings of the court upon the evidence, and the judgment rendered.

F. S Ferguson, for appellant.

HEAD J.

This is an action of trespass to coal lands. The defendant, in working its own mine, inadvertently encroached upon the coal imbedded in the adjoining land of the plaintiff, and severed and carried away therefrom a large quantity of plaintiff's coal. The plaintiff proved these facts, and then offered testimony to show the market value of coal during the time this coal was mined, and the cost of mining to the introduction of which testimony defendant objected and the court sustained the objection, to which plaintiff excepted. It was not offered to prove the market value of coal at any particular place; so it was unknown to the court whether the value in or at the mine, or at the place where the coal was actually marketed, or elsewhere, was intended to be shown; and as the grounds of objection to the testimony are not stated, and indulging all presumptions in favor of the court's ruling, it may be assumed that this generality was a ground of objection, and, being so, it was of itself sufficient to support the ruling. There was evidence to prove that coal lands similarly situated had been leased during the time of these trespasses, to wit, during the years 1893 and 1894, at from 5 to 7 1/2 cents per ton royalty. It was also shown that plaintiff had agreed to lease its said lands to one Harrison, at a royalty of 10 cents per ton on all the coal mined by him therefrom, but that when it was discovered, in August, 1894, that the coal was being mined, Harrison refused to take the lands under the lease. The court, sitting without a jury, held that the measure of damages was 7 1/2 cents per ton on the quantity of coal actually mined from plaintiff's land by defendant, and also on the coal left in the walls or pillars which was not mined, but made worthless by defendant, and rendered judgment for the plaintiff for the...