Kelly v. Keys

Citations

• 213 Pa. 295
• 62 A. 911
• 1906 Pa. LEXIS 466

Syllabus

<p>Oil and gas lease — Title to mineral — Possession—Ejectment.</p> <p>The grant of exclusive privileges to go on land for the purpose of prospecting for oil, the grantor to receive part of the oil mined, does not vest in the grantee any estate in the land or oil, but is merely a license or grant of an incorporeal hereditament; and the grantee, if he has never been in possession cannot maintain an action of ejectment against the grantor, or those claiming under him by a subsequent grant, although at the time of the ejectment oil was being produced in paying quantities.</p> <p>The grant of an exclusive right to mine for and produce oil, though it be a mineral, is not a sale of the oil that may afterwards be discovered. When under such a grant oil has been discovered, it is the grantee’s right to produce it and sever it from the soil; so much as is thus severed, belongs to the parties entitled under the terms of the grant, not as any part of the real estate, however, but as a chattel, and only so much as is produced and severed passes under the grant: as to all not produced there is no change of property.</p>