Graham v. Drydock Coal Co.

The issue before the court is whether a deed which severs a mineral estate from a surface estate, which is drafted after the advent of strip mining in the region, and which grants the right to use the surface incident to mining coal, in language peculiarly applicable to deep-mining techniques, reserves the right to remove coal by strip-mining methods.

The parties agree that each possesses precisely the same property rights as their predecessors in interest, the signatories to the original deeds. Their respective rights, therefore, are determined by our construction of the 1955 and 1962 deeds…