Lazarus v. Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co.

Citations

• 228 Pa. 532
• 77 A. 817
• 1910 Pa. LEXIS 520

Syllabus

<p>Mines and mining — Coal lease — Landlord and tenant — Affidavit of defense.</p> <p>In an action of assumpsit against a coal company to recover the value of coal mined from a small tract of land, forming part of a much larger tract of coal lands, operated under a lease from plaintiff’s predecessors in title to the assignors of defendant company, an affidavit of defense is insufficient which denies that title to the small tract ever existed in plaintiffs, or their predecessors, or that any right to the tract passed under the lease, and claims title in defendants by purchase after the date of the lease, but which does not show any chain of title in the defendants from the commonwealth, does not contain an averment as to how title became vested in its grantors, and which admits the existence of the lease and defendants’ possession thereunder.</p>