Streng v. Buck Run Coal Co.

Citations

• 241 Pa. 560
• 88 A. 796
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 817

Syllabus

<p>Equity — Equity jurisdiction — Injunctions—Contracts—Mining lease — Breach of covenants — Remedy at law.</p> <p>1. A court of equity will not grant an injunction to enforce a contract, the breach of which can be readily compensated in damages.</p> <p>2. In a proceeding in equity by a lessor for an injunction to restrain his lessee under a mining lease from mining pillars of coal, the complainants’ bill is properly dismissed where it appears that the defendant was in possession of the coal property in question under a lease which provided that the lessee should leave pillars of coal at all such points as might be designated by the lessor as necessary for the future working of the mine and for the security of improvements; that the mine contained two veins, one situated above the other; and that before all the coal had been removed from the upper vein, the lessee began to mine coal from the supporting pillars in the lower vein, against the orders of the plaintiffs; where it appears on the proofs that there was no necessity for such pillars to be left undisturbed; that the system of mining pursued by the defendant as a substitute for the “pillar system” was the better and safer of the two; and further that no present damage had accrued to the plaintiff and that any future damage which might result would not be irreparable and could be readily ascertained.</p> <p>Practice, Supreme Court — Equity rules — Assignments of error.</p> <p>3. Assignments of error which fail to show the exception taken in the court below, or the court’s action thereon, as required by the equity rules, and which merely state a decree by reference- to tha page where it is printed, instead of transcribing it in totidem verbis, are defective.</p>