Buckler v. Davis Sand & Gravel Corp.

Horney, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. When the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County dismissed the bill of complaint of Mary Ida Buckler (plaintiff or grantor) against the Davis Sand and Gravel Corporation (defendant or grantee) for injunctive relief to prohibit the continued use by the defendant of an allegedly terminated easement, 1 the plaintiff appealed. On January 31, 1951, the plaintiff (and her husband now deceased) granted to the defendant a tract of land (herein ⁵³⁵ called the Buckler Tract) consisting of 25.791 acres 2 of sand and gravel deposits situated in the Surrattsville District of Prince George’s County. At the time of the conveyance the defendant was engaged in mining sand and gravel in and about the area and had at that time several other “holdings” of sand and gravel pits adjacent to the Buckler Tract.

Incident to the conveyance and by the same deed there was also granted to the defendant a 45-foot easement across other land of the grantors from the public highway to the Buckler Tract. [The grant of this easement was limited as follows: “The * * * right-of-way is granted and conveyed for only so long as the grantee, its successors or assigns, mines the * * * [Buckler Tract] and its or their holdings of adjacent property as a sand and gravel pit. It is intended that upon a failure of the grantee, its successors and assigns, to use the said right-of-way in conjunction with its or their mining operations for a period of longer than one year then, and in that event, the property of the * * * [grantors], their heirs and assigns, shall be unencumbered by said right-of-way without the necessity of any act on their part to terminate said right-of-way.”] Within less than six months after it had purchased the Buckler Tract, the defendant—on July 9, 1951—acquired another tract of sand and gravel deposits (herein called the Goddard Tract) adjoining the other land of the plaintiff, on which it constructed a sand and gravel processing plant. It is in this plant on this after acquired tract that all sand and gravel from the original tract and pits was processed and in which the sand and gravel from other after acquired pits is now being processed. The defendant concedes that the mining operations which commenced on the Buckler Tract shortly after its acquisition ⁵³⁶ and were conducted—extensively at first for about two years and then only nominally in the later years—ceased on September 7, 1957, until November 13, 1958, when the defendant mined the tract for only part of one day, and apparently has not mined it since.

Moreover, it appears that all of the “adjacent holdings” owned or leased by the defendant on January 31, 1951, had been disposed of prior to the last day of active operation [September 7, 1957] on the Buckler Tract. On September 19, 1958, the plaintiff challenged the right of the defendant to continue use of the easement and, when it refused to desist, this proceeding was filed on December 1, 1958. The plaintiff contends that she is entitled to enjoin the defendant from continuing to use the easement at all or, if that be denied, to enjoin the defendant from subjecting the easement to the increased burden it is now required to undergo. It is difficult to ascertain with certainty the contentions of the defendant.

Other than a claim that “all the commercially feasible sand and gravel” has not been removed from the Buckler Tract, the defendant seems to contend that because it is still operating the processing plant on the adjoining after acquired Goddard Tract and is still mining sand and gravel on the after acquired holdings of “other” adjacent property, it is entitled to continue to use the easement “in conjunction with” its “mining operations,” which it asserts “must include digging, processing, holding for sale, selling and delivering.” The chancellor—who apparently ascribed a broader meaning to the words “successors and assigns” than the usually accepted meaning of those words, i. e., “those who succeed to the rights of a corporation”-—in construing the easement, particularly the clause—-“for only so long as the grantee, its successors or assigns, mines the * * * [Buckler Tract] and its or their holdings of adjacent property as a sand and gravel pit” —concluded that the defendant was not restricted to those holdings it owned or leased on the date [January 31, 1951] the easement was granted. On the contrary he concluded that the defendant had a right to use the easement so long as it, and its successors or assigns, continued to mine sand and gravel on any of “its or their holdings” of property ad ⁵³⁷ jacent to the Buckler Tract—regardless of when such holdings were acquired—because the phrase was “broad enough to cover other property in the same area which by the nature of things, could be used practically and economically in connection with this mining operation.” We do not agree. When an easement is acquired by an express grant, as was the case here, the extent of the rights thereby granted must necessarily depend upon a proper construction of the conveyance or that part of it by which the easement was created. The primary rule for the construction of contracts generally —and the rule is applicable to the construction of a grant of an easement—is that a court should ascertain and give effect to the intention of the parties at the time the contract was made, if that be possible.

In the instant case the easement was