Conveyance of Mineral Rights includes Rights to Sand and Gravel

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A 1917 deed conveyed “all minerals in, under and upon” the property being deeded, together with the rights to “dig, mine and remove” those minerals from the land. The Appellate Division, Third Department, concurring with the ruling of the Supreme Court, Clinton County, held that the mineral rights owned by the Plaintiff included the right to extract and remove sand and gravel. The Appellate Division, quoting the Court of Appeals’ decision in White v. Miller, concurred.

 “The Court of Appeals has directly passed on the meaning of the term
‘minerals’ as used in a conveyance and concluded that the term ‘will include all inorganic substances…[that] can be taken from the land’ where the term’s meaning is not restricted ‘b[y] qualifying words, or language, evidencing that the parties contemplated something less general than all substances legally cognizable as minerals’ (White v. Miller, 200 NY 29, 39 [1910]). Thus, unless qualifying and restrictive language related to the term minerals renders the term ambiguous in any particular conveyance, the meaning of minerals is determinable as a matter of law and is not subject to extrinsic proof…Accordingly, given that the 1917 deed does not qualify or restrict the term minerals, the Court of Appeals’ interpretation controls. Therefore, as sand and gravel are ‘inorganic substances…that can be taken from the land’, they fall within the mineral rights conveyed by the 1917 deed”.

Champlain Gas & Oil, LLC v. The People of the State of New York, 2017 NY Slip Op 01610, decided March 2, 2017, reported at 148 AD3d 1260, is posted at http://nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2017/2017_01610.htm.

 

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Mike Berey
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