Judge M. Mullins v. Beatrice Pocahontas Company

Plaintiffs, landowners in the area surrounding Keen Mountain, Virginia, sought in this litigation to obtain compensatory damages and an injunction to abate an alleged nuisance caused by a coal operating plant of Beatrice Pocahontas Company in conjunction with its mine at Keen Mountain. The plant cleans coal of impurities so that it can be used in metallurgical processes, and a by-product of the cleaning process is coal dust which, it is alleged, is discharged into the atmosphere and falls out onto plaintiffs’ property. Initially, the district court granted summary judgment against all…