## Facts

- A gas company obtained easements in 1914 for a 16-inch natural gas pipeline crossing three tracts in Mingo County, West Virginia (Vinson, Baach, and McCormick).
- The Vinson and Baach easement deeds contained a reservation that the pipeline rights “shall not interfere with the proper and reasonable use” of the land for mining and removal of coal and other minerals (and timber).
- Those deeds also required the pipeline company to pay “any damages” arising in the future from “maintaining, operating, and removing” the pipeline.
- The McCormick easement was obtained by condemnation and did not contain the same reservation and damages language.
- Quintain acquired coal/mining interests and planned surface/mountaintop removal mining, which conflicted with the pipeline’s location.
- Quintain sued for injunctive relief to compel the pipeline owner (CNR, successor to the original grantee) to relocate the pipeline at CNR’s expense.
- The circuit court granted summary judgment for Quintain, ordered relocation at CNR’s expense, and found the pipeline a nuisance.
- CNR appealed; summary judgment review was de novo.

## Issues

1. Whether the Vinson and Baach easement language required pipeline relocation when necessary to avoid interference with reserved mining rights, and whether it assigned relocation costs to CNR.
2. Whether a pipeline maintained under a valid easement could constitute a private nuisance against the servient estate.
3. Whether and how the condemnation-based McCormick easement differed in relocation obligations due to the absence of mining-reservation language.

## Decision

- The court affirmed that, under the Vinson and Baach deeds, the pipeline must be relocated when necessary to avoid interfering with the reserved mining rights.
- The court reversed the order requiring CNR to pay relocation costs, holding the deeds did not shift those costs to CNR.
- The court reversed the nuisance ruling and announced that easement-consistent conduct is not a nuisance against the servient estate unless it exceeds the easement’s scope.
- The court remanded for further proceedings consistent with its rulings, including implementation details and treatment of the McCormick tract.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is reviewed de novo and is proper only when no genuine fact dispute exists and further factual inquiry is unnecessary to apply the law.
- A deed (including an easement deed) is construed as of the date of execution.
- Where an easement is expressly made subordinate to a reservation for “proper and reasonable” mining, the easement holder must yield as needed to give effect to that reserved use, including by relocating the encumbrance.
- A general “future damages” clause tied to maintaining, operating, and removing a pipeline does not, without clear language, impose an obligation on the easement holder to finance relocation undertaken to accommodate the servient owner’s preferred land use.
- A private nuisance is a substantial and unreasonable interference with another’s use and enjoyment of land; an easement holder’s acts or omissions that otherwise fit that definition do not create a nuisance against the servient estate unless they exceed the easement’s scope.

## Conclusion

The court held that mining-reservation language in the Vinson and Baach easements required the pipeline to be moved when it interfered with reasonable mining, but the deeds did not require the pipeline owner to pay for relocation; it also rejected nuisance liability because the pipeline’s presence and operation within the easement’s scope was authorized and therefore not actionable as a nuisance.


Quintain Dev. LLC v. Columbia Nat. Res., Inc., 210 W. Va. 128, 556 S.E.2d 95 (W. Va. 2001)