Yukon Pocahontas Coal Co. v. Ratliff

• Decision Date: 08 April 1940
• Docket Number: Record No. 2212.
• Citation: 175 Va. 366
• Parties: YUKON POCAHONTAS COAL COMPANY, A CORPORATION, ET ALS. v. F. M. RATLIFF, ET ALS.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 366

175 Va. 366

YUKON POCAHONTAS COAL COMPANY, A CORPORATION, ET ALS. v. F. M. RATLIFF, ET ALS.

Record No. 2212.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Richmond.

April 8, 1940.

Present, All the Justices.

1. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Declaratory Judgments — Interpretation of Deed — Test of Right to Interpretation. — In a suit for a declaratory judgment interpreting a deed, the test of the right to an interpretation is the existence of an actual controversy.

2. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Declaratory Judgments — Existence of Controversy Is Question of Fact. — In a suit for a declaratory judgment, whether or not there is a controversy is a question of fact, which may be shown by the pleadings or by the evidence.

3. DEMURRERS — Operation and Effect — Admits as True All Facts Well Pleaded. — The effect of a demurrer to a bill in equity is to admit as true all facts well pleaded in the bill.

4. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Declaratory Judgments — Statute to Be Liberally Construed. — The declaratory judgment act, sections 6140a-6140h of the Code of 1936, is remedial and is to be liberally interpreted and administered.

5. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Declaratory Judgments — Interpretation of Deed — Allegations Showing Actual Controversy — Case at Bar. — The instant case was a suit for a declaratory judgment in which complainants sought to have a deed conveying mineral rights interpreted. They alleged that defendants were dividing the surface of a portion of the land claimed under the deed, erecting and permitting the erection of buildings and other improvements thereon that were inconsistent with mining purposes, and destroying the rights, privileges and easements of complainants, and excluding them from the use of the surface of the land, in violation of the rights, privileges and easements expressly and impliedly conveyed to them by the deed, and that they had no plain, adequate and complete relief at law.

Held: That the allegations of the bill showed that there was an actual controversy and an actual antagonistic assertion or denial of rights between the parties, since it alleged that the controversy involved not only a denial of the implied rights, easements and privileges claimed, but also a denial of the rights expressly granted eo nomine in the deed.

6. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Declaratory Judgments — Interpretation of Deed — Sufficiency of Allegations on Demurrer — Case at Bar. — The instant case was a suit for a declaratory judgment in which complainants sought to have a deed conveying mineral rights interpreted. They alleged that defendants were dividing the surface of a portion of the land claimed under the deed, erecting and permitting the erection of buildings and other improvements thereon that were inconsistent with mining purposes, and destroying the rights, privileges and easements of complainants, and excluding them from the use of the surface of the land, in violation of the rights, privileges and easements expressly and impliedly conveyed to them by the deed, and that they had no plain, adequate and complete relief at law. The trial court sustained demurrers to the bill.

Held: That, accepting the allegations of fact in the bill as true, they were sufficient to sustain the bill for an adjudication of the rights in controversy, and the demurrers should have been overruled.

7. JUDGMENTS AND DECREES — Declaratory Judgments — Interpretation of Deed — Scope of Review on Appeal from Decree Sustaining Demurrer. — In a suit for a declaratory judgment involving the interpretation of a deed, upon an appeal from a decree sustaining a demurrer to the bill, the Supreme Court of Appeals cannot pass upon the merits.

Appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Buchanan county. Hon. Alfred A. Skeen, judge presiding.

The opinion states the case.

Greever & Gillespie, Burns & Lively, F. H. Combs and Landon C. Bell, for the appellants.

Roland E. Chase, W. A. Daugherty and S.H. & Geo. C. Sutherland, for the appellees.

SPRATLEY, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

Five corporations, the appellants, the Yukon Pocahontas Coal Company, the W. M. Ritter Lumber Company, the Buchanan Coal Company, the Sayers Pocahontas Coal Company, Inc., and the Red Jacket Coal Corporation, filed their bill in the Circuit Court of Buchanan county against F. M. Ratliff and ninety other defendants, seeking a declaratory judgment in a controversy involving the interpretation of a deed, and praying for an injunction to prevent an alleged unlawful interference with the exercise of the rights and privileges granted to the appellants in the said deed.

Two demurrers to the bill were filed, one by each of two separate groups of the defendants. The demurrers assigned twenty-four specific grounds as to the insufficiency of the bill. The trial court sustained the demurrers on the ground that the language of the deed was free from ambiguity and clearly and definitely fixed the rights of the parties. It denied the appellants, for that reason, the right to a declaratory judgment and dismissed the bill. The trial judge, nevertheless, in a written memorandum, in giving his reasons for the conclusion that the deed was free from ambiguity, did undertake to construe the language.

The decree of dismissal further held that the acts charged against the defendants constituted no infringement upon the rights of the appellants.

1, 2 In view of the pleadings and upon the record, there is presented to us, at this time, for consideration, the sole question of whether or not the facts alleged in the bill are sufficient to sustain this action. We are here concerned with the right to the interpretation, rather than the interpretation of the deed. The test of the right to an interpretation is the existence of an "actual controversy". The interpretation is the solution of the controversy. It follows as the result of the controversy. Whether or not there is a...