“Surface” Deed Found to Convey all Mineral Rights Except Specifically Excepted Coal

“Surface” Deed Found to Convey all Mineral Rights Except Specifically Excepted Coal

      In a decision earlier this month from the Kentucky Court of Appeals, notwithstanding that the subject deed referred to a conveyance of the “surface” of the property, based upon its particular wording, it was held that the “surface” deed conveyed all mineral rights except the expressly excepted coal rights. Potter v. Blue Flame Energy Corp., No. 2015-CA-000873-MR (Ky. App. March 3, 2017).

      At this stage of this long-running dispute, the question was whether all subsurface mineral rights had been conveyed by a prior deed or, in the alternative, had only the coal rights been conveyed, leaving to the holders of the surface rights title to the oil and gas under the subject property. The trial court, granting summary judgment, had held that only the surface rights had been conveyed, without any mineral rights. The Court of Appeals would reverse that determination.

      Focusing upon the language separately treating the rights to coal and affording as well the “usual mining rights… for removal of same,” it was held that the retained rights were only to the coal estate and nothing more. Ultimately, the subject deed severed the coal estate from the balance of the property, and had no impact upon the oil, gas and other mineral rights. On that basis the rights to the non-coal mineral rights went with the expressly addressed surface estate.