## Facts

- W.C. York acquired a tract of land in Lamar County, Alabama, in 1926.
- In 1928, York and his wife executed an instrument to Lamar County conveying their interest in a twenty-foot-wide corridor across the property “for the use and purpose of maintaining a public highway” and “for the purpose of constructing a road.”
- The 1928 instrument also covered land where the road was then located or might later be located by the county within the described corridor.
- In 1956, York and his wife conveyed the larger tract to Willard P. McGee by warranty deed without expressly excepting the prior road instrument.
- In 1981, Willard and Rachel McGee conveyed the tract (with a small exception) to McGee, Ltd.
- In 1984, the Lamar County Commission executed an oil, gas, and mineral lease to Peyton Greaves purporting to cover the lands described in the 1928 road instrument.
- The McGees sought a declaratory judgment that they owned the minerals under the public road; Greaves counterclaimed that the county’s lease gave him the mineral rights.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1928 York-to-county instrument conveyed a fee simple estate in the road strip or only a right-of-way easement for public road purposes.
2. If the instrument conveyed only an easement, whether Lamar County lacked authority to lease the underlying minerals to Greaves.

## Decision

- The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s declaratory judgment for the McGees.
- The Court construed the 1928 instrument as granting only a right-of-way easement for construction and maintenance of a public road, not a fee simple conveyance of the strip.
- Because the county held only an easement, it had no mineral estate to lease; the McGees, as successors to York, owned the minerals beneath the public road.

## Legal Principles

- Deed construction turns on the instrument’s intent as shown by its language and context, read as a whole.
- A conveyance to a governmental entity for roadway purposes that uses right-of-way and limited-purpose language will be construed as an easement absent a clear expression of intent to convey the fee.
- References to a “strip of land” do not alone establish a fee conveyance when the operative language limits the grant to public-road use.
- A clause allowing the roadway’s location to be changed within a described area is consistent with an easement for a roadway rather than a fixed fee transfer.
- When only an easement is conveyed for a road, the underlying fee—including subsurface minerals—remains with the grantor and successors, and the easement holder cannot convey mineral rights.

## Conclusion

The court held that the 1928 public-road instrument granted Lamar County only an easement for roadway purposes, so the county could not lease subsurface minerals to Greaves and the McGees retained mineral ownership beneath the road.


Greaves v. McGee, 492 So. 2d 307 (Ala. 1986)