Consolidated Coal Co. v. Schmisseur

Citations

• 135 Ill. 371
• 25 N.E. 795

Syllabus

<p>1. Contbact—lease—sale of underlying coal—and lease of surface ground—limitation as to time for removal of the coal. The owner of a tract of land sold the coal under the same for a stipulated sum, reserving no royalty, and to enable the purchaser to mine and raise the coal leased to him a certain portion of the surface of the land for a term of years, unless the coal should be sooner exhausted, in which event said lease and the right to mine said coal should cease and expire : Held, that the grantee of the coal, and his assigns, had the whole term prescribed in the lease in which to remove the coal underlying the lessor’s lands, without limitation or restriction.</p> <p>2. Where the owner of coal land, for a sum in gross, sells all his right to the coal underlying the land, and grants a fixed time within which the coal may be removed, the purchaser of the coal or his assigns, by failing to remove the same as soon as he might, and availing himself of the time limited to him, is guilty of no fraud upon the rights of his vendor.</p> <p>3. Injunction—to restrain a violation of contract—as, in respect to the use of leased premises. Where a contract of leasing is certain, and the use of the demised premises for a specified purpose is clearly fixed by the agreement of parties, the appropriation of the premises to a use inconsistent with that for which they are demised will frequently afford ground for the interposition of a court of equity, byway of injunction. When the use to which the premises are sought to be appropriated is inconsistent with the purposes for which they were let, and the change will operate to the injury of the lessor, the aid of such court mayproperly be invoked.</p> <p>4. Courts of equity will frequently interpose by injunction, and indirectly enforce specific performance of purely negative covenants annexed to or contained in contracts or leases, by prohibiting their breach, and will entertain bills for injunction to prevent their breach, although