Heidt v. Aughenbaugh Coal Co.

Opinion by

Me. Justice Benjamin R. Jones,

In this appeal we are called upon to determine an issue oft recurring in recent years: whether under the terms and provisions of a lease of mineral rights strip or open mining of such minerals is permissible. In our determination of this issue we bear in mind the language of the late Mr. Justice Stearne in Mt. Carmel R. R. Co. v. M. A. Hanna Co., 371 Pa. 232, 89 A. 2d 508: “It is the interpretation of the words of the document which determines whether the method of removal of the [mineral] may be by strip mining or is required to be by deep mining.”

On…