## Facts

- A tract was horizontally severed into separate estates, including a fee interest in a coal seam conveyed to Chartiers Block Coal Company.
- The coal conveyance granted rights to mine, including ingress, egress, and reasonable surface occupation necessary to remove coal.
- The conveyance did not expressly address later-developed oil and gas access through the coal seam.
- After oil and gas development became commercially significant, operators claiming under the surface owner (W. L. Mellon) drilled and proposed additional wells to reach oil and gas below, passing through or near the coal seam.
- Chartiers alleged drilling and well operations interfered with safe and economical coal mining and would force the coal owner to leave unmined support coal around wells.
- Chartiers sought an injunction broadly restraining further drilling that would penetrate or impair its coal estate.

## Issues

1. When surface and mineral strata are severed into separate fee estates, what implied rights exist for each estate holder to use the surface and penetrate other strata to reach and develop its own estate?
2. Whether oil and gas development associated with the surface estate may lawfully drill through a separately owned coal seam absent an express grant, and if so, on what limits.
3. Whether equity should enjoin drilling that interferes with coal mining, or instead allow development subject to protective conditions.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the lower court’s refusal to grant the broad injunction sought by the coal owner.
- The court held that the severance created distinct fee estates in the respective strata (surface, coal, and other minerals), each capable of independent development.
- The court recognized an implied right, as against the surface owner, for each mineral owner to enter and reasonably use the surface to access and work its estate, even without express language.
- The implied right of access and use was not absolute; it had to be exercised with due regard for other estate holders, and equity could restrain conduct within proper limits.
- The decree allowing existing wells to remain and permitting additional wells subject to safeguards (including security and protective measures) was upheld as an appropriate equitable resolution.

## Legal Principles

- Horizontal severance of land into surface and mineral strata can create separate fee simple estates in each stratum, each independently alienable and developable.
- A mineral estate carries an implied right to access and reasonable surface use necessary to reach and operate the mineral estate, even absent express grant language.
- Conflicting uses among severed estates are governed by a “due regard” limitation: each estate holder must exercise its rights reasonably and with consideration for others’ lawful uses.
- Equity may tailor relief to prevent unreasonable or unnecessary interference, favoring conditional protections over categorical prohibitions when coequal estates require concurrent development.

## Conclusion

The court rejected an absolute veto by the coal owner over oil-and-gas drilling through the coal seam, holding that severed strata owners have implied, reasonably necessary access rights, constrained by equitable “due regard,” and that courts may permit development subject to protective conditions rather than imposing a sweeping injunction.


Chartiers Block Coal Co. v. Mellon, 25 A. 597 (Pa. 1893)