Lehigh Valley Coal Co. v. Everhart

Citations

• 206 Pa. 118
• 55 A. 864
• 1903 Pa. LEXIS 660

Syllabus

<p>Mines and mining — Lease—Royalties.</p> <p>A mining lease gave to the lessee the right to mine all the merchantable coal to exhaustion, accompanied with certain surface and timber privileges on the lessor’s land. No fixed term was specified. One clause of the lease provided for the payment of thirty cents per ton for the coal mined and removed. By a subsequent clause the same rate per ton was fixed, but the lessee agreed to pay during the remainder of the term “a fixed minimum cash royalty annually of thirty thousand dollars in quarterly installments, and for such payment may mine and remove in eaeh and every year as aforesaid one hundred thousand tons of coal.” Held, that the lessee was bound to continue the payment of the stipulated minimum royalty as long as any coal remained unmined, although he may have paid an amount in excess of thirty cents per ton for all the coal under the land both mined and unmined. In such a case the lessee’s loss was caused by his own delay. Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. v. Wright, 177 Pa. 887, followed.</p> <p>Equity — Equity practice — Findings of fact and conclusions of law. Where counsel present requests for fiudings of fact and for conclusions of law, the judge is bound to answer each by adopting, affirming, qualifying or denying it. It is not sufficient that such requests may be substantially answered by the judge’s own independent findings, if he does not indicate in connection with each request itself what he regards as his answer, to be found in his own independent findings.</p> <p>Mr. Justice Potter dissents.</p>