Chartiers Block Coal Co. v. Mellon

Opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice Paxson,

This is a case of first impressions and of very grave importance. And in view of these facts, -we have been asked to express our opinion of the law bearing upon it, notwithstanding it is an appeal from a decree awarding a preliminary injunction. The facts are probably as fully before us now as they will ever be.

The contest arises between the owner of the surface, or his lessees, and the Chartiers Block Coal Company, the plaintiff below and appellant, which is the owner in fee of the coal beneath the surface. The company purchased the coal on December 22,1881, and the deed conveying it granted not only all the coal, but also the mining rights and privileges, including the right to enter mines and carry away all the coal; the right to make openings or entries, air courses, water courses, drainage and shafts, with right of ingress and egress for the purpose of making such openings, with right of way for taking such coal or any other coal and minerals through the entries, and also the right to enter upon the surface of the land for the purpose of taking into and placing on the same any material that it may desire and need in its coal operations, and when making entries or shafts, the right to deposit the débris and slack near the openings.

The grantor, in conveying the coal with these privileges, reserved to himself no right, privilege or easement in said coal, or any part thereof, and no right of way through said coal from the surface to obtain gas or oil, or any other substance. It is not likely at the time the grant was made that it occurred either to the grantor or the grantee of the coal that underneath the latter there might lie another substance of perhaps greater value than the subject of the grant itself. It now appears that the coal is underlaid with the oil and gas bearing sand, which can only be reached by sinking wells from the surface through the strata of coal. Shortly before the filing of this bill it began to be known that oil or gas existed in large quantities in that part of Allegheny county where the appellants’ works are situated, and active operations had begun in the early summer of 1891 by oil operators to obtain this oil and gas.

About this time the surface owner made leases for oil and gas purposes, and the lessees began at once to drill. This bill was then filed by the appellant company for the purpose of obtaining an injunction against the defendants, to restrain them from further drilling wells then commenced, and from drilling any other well or wells which would pass through the coal. The bill was filed upon the allegation and belief that the defendants had no right whatever to drill the wells. The plaintiff company also claimed that it was impossible for such wells to be drilled in such a manner as to allow the removal of all the coal without exposing the mine to leakage from gas from said wells, and rendering the mine operations so hazardous to plaintiff’s property and plaintiff’s employees as to very greatly injure and depreciate the value of said coal property, if not wholly to destroy the value thereof.

The case was heard below upon bill, answer and affidavits. The court, as we understand the decree, refused to grant a preliminary injunction as against any well or wells on said tract of land which at the date of the decree had been drilled by the defendant through the Pittsburgh vein of coal, and also refused to enjoin the defendant from drilling wells on said tract at any place or places where they will not pass through said Pittsburgh vein of coal, but will pass through lower strata of coal.

The court awarded an injunction, however, as to any wells not already drilled which would pass through the Pittsburgh vein, and, in addition to the ordinary injunction bond, the decree required that the defendant should execute and deliver to the plaintiff his bond in the sum of ten thousand dollars, with two sureties to be approved by .the court, conditioned that in putting down and operating any wells now in process of drilling, or which may hereafter be drilled under this decree, said defendant shall protect said coal and property of said plaintiff, and also the plaintiff’s employees in and about said coal from all damages by reason of said wells, and that they will use the best methods, devices and appliances in the construction and operation of such wells; and that before said wells are abandoned he shall securely plug the same above each oil and gas bearing sand.

Subsequently the decree was modified so as to remove the injunction from the two wells now commenced, but which have not gone down through the Pittsburgh coal vein on defendant’s giving bond as before stated.

The learned judge below justified his decision, as we learn from his opinion in another case heard before him and involving substantially the same questions, upon the ground that the owner of the surface has a right of way by necessity through the coal to reach his oil and gas lying beneath it. But he concedes that to make such right available it would require a large modification of the rules in relation to a right of way by necessity over the surface. “Yet,” to use his own language, “my present impressions are that it can and should be sustained in a reasonable manner, having due regard for the interest and rights of both parties. But it cannot be permitted to an extent that will destroy the grant of the coal, nor even to seriously depreciate it without ample compensation. The owner of the surface cannot bore where he pleases, nor as often as he pleases. The right of designating the reasonable location of the one right of way by necessity, which the law recognizes, has always been held to be in the owner of the land. If he refuses to designate such way, then the owner of the right of way can designate it, or can apply to the court to have it located.”

This is a new question and one that is full of difficulty. The discovery of new sources of wealth, and the springing up of new industries which were never dreamed of half a century ago, sometimes present questions to which it is difficult to apply the law, as it has heretofore existed. It is the crowning merit of the common law, however, that it is not composed of ironclad rules, but may be modified to a reasonable extent to meet new questions as they arise. This may be called the expansive property of the common law. Mining rights are peculiar and exist from necessity, and the necessity must be recognized, and the rights of mine and landowners adjusted and protected accordingly. We have an illustration of this in the Pennsylvania Coal Company v. Sanderson, 113 Pa. 126.

The mining of coal and other minerals is constantly developing new questions. Formerly a man who owned the surface owned it to the centre of the earth. Now the surface of the land may be separated from the different strata underneath it, and there may be as many different owners as there are strata : Lillibridge v. Coal Company, 143 Pa. 293. The difficulty is to so apply the law as to give each owner the right of enjoyment of his property or strata without impinging upon the right of other owners, where the owner of the surface has neglected to guard his own rights in the deed by which he granted the lower strata to other owners.

In the earlier days of the common law the attention of buyers and sellers, and, therefore, the attention of the courts, was fixed upon the surface. He who owned the surface owned all that grew upon it and all that was buried beneath it. His title extended upward to the clouds and downward to the earth’s centre. The value of his estate lay, however, in the arable qualities of the surface, and, with rare exceptions, the income derived from it was the result of agriculture. The comparatively recent development of the sciences of geology and mineralogy, and the multiplication of mechanical devices for penetrating the earth’s crust have greatly changed the uses and the values of lands. Tracts that were absolutely valueless, so far as the surface was concerned, have come to be worth many times as much per acre as the best farming lands in the commonwealth, because of the rich deposits of coal, or iron, or oil, or gas known to underlie them at various depths. These deposits are sometimes found, however, beneath well cultivated farms, so that the surface has a large market value apart from the value of the deposits of coal or other minerals under it. In such cases the owner is rarely able to utilize the lower stores of wealth to which he has title, by mining operations conducted by himself, and for this reason he sells them to some person or corporation to be mined and to be moved. So it often happens that the owner of a farm sells the land to one man, the iron, or oil, or gas to another, giving to each purchaser a deed, or conveyance in fee simple for his particular deposit or stratum, while he retains the surface for settlement and cultivation precisely as he held it before. The severance is complete for all legal and practical purposes. Each of the separate layers or strata becomes a subject of taxation, of incumbrance, levy, and sale, precisely like the surface. As against the owner of the surface each of the several purchasers would have the right, without any express words of grant for that purpose, to go upon the surface to open a way by shaft, or drift, or well, to his underlying estate, and to occupy so much of the surface, beyond the limits of his shaft, drift, or well, as might be necessary to operate his estate, and to remove the product thereof. This is a right to be exercised with due regard to the owner of the surface, and its exercise will be restrained, within proper limits, by a court of equity if this becomes necessary ; but subject to this limitation it is a right growing out of the contract of sale, the position of the stratum sold, and the impossibility of reaching it in any other manner. So far, our way is clear of difficulty because the several owners of the mineral deposits are exercising their right to have access to their respective estates against their vendor. Our question is over the right of the vendor to reach strata underlying a stratum which he has conveyed to another. Having sold the coal underlying the surface, is he to be forever barred from reaching his estate lying beneath the coal ? Prior to the sale of the coal his estate, as before observed, reached from the heavens to the centre of the earth. With the exception of the coal his estate is still bounded by those limits. It is impossible for him to reach his underlying estate, except by puncturing the earth’s surface and going down through the coal which he has sold. While the owner of the coal may have an estate in fee therein, it is at the same time an estate that is peculiar in its nature. Much of the confusion of thought upon this subject arises from a misapprehension of the character of this estate. We must regard it from a business, as well as a legal, standpoint. The grantee of the coal owns the coal but nothing else, save the right of access to it and the right to take it away. Practically considered, the grant of the coal is the grant of a right to remove it. This right is sometimes limited in point of time; in others it is without limit. In either event it is the grant of an estate determinable upon the removal of the coal. It is, moreover, a grant of an estate which owes a servitude of support to the surface. When the coal is all removed the estate ends for the plain reason that the subject of it has been carried awajn The space it occupied reverts to the grantor by operation of law. It needs no reservation in the deed, because it was never granted. The grantee has the right to use and occupy it while engaged in the removal of the coal, for the reason that such use is essential to the enjoyment of the grant. It cannot be seriously contended that after the coal is removed the owner of the surface may not utilize the space it had occupied for his own purposes, either for shafts or wells, to reach the underlying strata. The most that can be claimed is that, pending the removal, his right of access to the lower strata is suspended. The position that the owner of the coal is also the owner of the hole from which it has been removed, and may forever prevent the surface owner from reaching underlying strata, has no authority in reason, nor do I think in law. The right may be suspended during the operation of the removal of the coal to the extent of preventing any wanton interference with the coal mining; and for every necessary interference with it the surface owner must respond in damages. The owner of the coal must so enjoy his. own rights as not to interfere with the lawful exercise of the rights of others who may own the estate, either above or below him. The right of the surface owner to reach his estate below the coal exists at all times. The exercise of it may be more difficult at some times than at others, and attended with both trouble and expense.

No one will deny the title of the surface owner to all that lies beneath the strata which he has sold. It is as much a part of his estate as the surface. If he is denied the means of access to it he is literally deprived of an estate which he has never parted with. In such case the public might be debarred the use of the hidden treasures which the great laboratory of nature has provided for man’s use in the bowels of the earth. Some of them, at least, are necessary to his comfort. Coal, oil, gas and iron are absolutely essential to our common comfort and prosperity. To place them beyond the reach of the public would be a great public wrong. Abounding, as our state does, with these mineral treasures, so essential to our common prosperity, the question we are considering becomes of a quasi public character. It is not to be treated as a mere contest between A and B over a little corner of earth. We have already seen that when the owner of the surface parted with the underlying coal he parted with nothing but the coal. He gave no title to any of the strata underlying it, and it is not to be supposed for a monent that the grantor parted with or intended to part with his right of access to it. We are of opinion that he has such right of access. The only question is, how that right shall be exercised, by what authority, and under what limitations.

While there is some analogy between such right and the common law right of way of necessity over the surface, we quite agree with the learned judge below that it would require a large modification of the common law rule. We do not see our way clear to apply the doctrine of a surface right of way of necessity to the facts of this case. While the right of the surface owner, to reach in some way his underlying strata, is conceded, it involves too many questions affecting the rights of property, and of injury to the underlying strata, to be settled by the judiciary. It is a legislative rather than a judicial question. It needs and should promptly receive the interposition of the legislative authority. That body is now in session, and we have no doubt its wisdom will enable it to dispose of this somewhat difficult question in such manner as to protect the rights of the surface owner and yet do no violence to the rights of others to whom he has sold one or more of the underlying strata. With the right conceded, there can be no serious difficulty in the law-making power affording a proper remedy. That remedy should be carefully guarded. The owner of the underlying strata should not be permitted at his mere will and pleasure to interfere with strata lying above him. ' All this requires an amount of legal machinery that a court of equity cannot supply, however wide its jurisdiction and plastic its process. In all such cases there should be a petition to the court, and a decree regulating the mode of exercise of the right. There should also be a provision for the appointment of a jury of view to assess the damages. In this way the rights of the surface owner can be preserved without any wrong to the owner of the coal.

While we do not fully sustain the reasons given by the learned judge below, we will not interfere with this decreefor another reason. Tne plaintiff company has not yet sustained any irreparable injury by reason of the sinking of these wells, and it may never do so. We find ourselves upon a new roa'd, without chart or compass to guide us, and we propose to move slowly. The appellants have appealed to us as chancellors, and even if we concede their right to be clear, it does not follow that as chancellors we will enforce it. The effect of doing so would be to leave the owner of the surface at the absolute mercy of the owner of the coal. It is true, he can buy the coal of the latter, but only on the terms dictated by the owner. To grant the injunction as claimed by the appellant would be to destroy the estate of the surface owner in the minerals below the coal. If this were the only case of the kind in the state we might perhaps modify our views to some extent, but when we reflect upon the fact that many other similar cases exist, and that a vast quantity of the leased coal lands in the western part of the state are underlaid with oil and gas, precisely as in the case in hand, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that vast interests may be affected by our decree, and great injury done to the rights of others. It is familiar law, too familiar to need the citation of authority, that the decree of a chancellor is of grace, not of right, and that he is not bound to make a decree which will do far more mischief and work far greater injury than the wrong which he is asked to redress,

For these reasons we will not disturb the decree of the court below. The appellant company has its remedy at law, and to that we will remit it.

The decree is affirmed, and the appeal dismissed at the costs of the appellants.