MANAGING COMPANY-INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR.

A coal company can not escape liability for an injury to a miner caused by its alleged negligence on the ground that it was not operating a coal mine but was merely a holding company and that the coal mine was in fact operated by another company, and that the two companies were separate and distinct, where the same officers and stockholders constituted both companies and where the evidence shows that metal checks were given to the employees in payment of labor and supplies bearing the name of the defendant company. Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. v. Tuggle (Kentucky), 164 Southwestern, 74, p. 75, March, 1914.

PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS.

PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTS-SETTLEMENT OF ACCOUNTS.

An action by the administrator of a deceased miner against his partner for an accounting for moneys expended in the development of the claim will be defeated by proof that the defendant repudiated the agreement at a particular time and gave notice that he would not contribute longer to the enterprise and thereupon the partners settled and adjusted the accounts to that date.

Goldsmith v. Murray (Montana), 138 Pacific, 187, December, 1913.

CONSTRUCTION AND RIGHTS.

Under an agreement between the plaintiff and defendant by which the former advanced money to the latter for his expenses in procuring oil leases and options and was to have an equal interest in such leases and options, even though the defendant was to give all his time to such business, this did not prevent him from joining in the organization of a corporation for the purpose of developing oil property, where this took no part of his time and did not conflict with the partnership business and where it appeared that the plaintiff refused to put any money into any drilling propositions and a subsequent agreement by which plaintiff was no longer to furnish money, of itself terminated the original agreement and the plaintiff could have no interest in the corporation subsequently organized, even though defendant's interest in the corporation would have been partnership property if acquired prior to the termination of the partnership agree

ment.

Hamman v. Emerson (135 Louisiana), 65 Southern, 765, p. 767, May, 1914.

SUIT FOR AN ACCOUNTING.

Mining partners in a suit for an accounting should each be charged and credited with the sums received and paid out according to their respective interests, and one partner is entitled to a credit and the

other should be charged with one-half of a sum paid by one partner for an interest owned by the partners equally.

Kleesattel v. Orr (Washington), 141 Pacific, 355, June, 1914.

METHODS OF OPERATING.

EXPERT EVIDENCE.

While the rule is that where all the circumstances can be fully and adequately described to the jury, and are such that their effect can be understood by all men, without special knowledge or training, then the opinion of witnesses, expert or otherwise, is not admissible; but where the roof of a tunnel in a mine had been cracked from the effect of a shot fired by the miner, and where an inexperienced miner was unable to pry down the loosened parts with a bar, and where he was subsequently injured by the fall of this loosened material, expert miners may give their opinion as to whether experience and knowledge of the sounding test were necessary to determine whether the roof of the tunnel in such condition was liable to fall, and the evidence is admissible on the theory that all men are not familiar with the operation of coal mines or with the various conditions that might or might not indicate danger, and are not as capable as experienced miners in determining whether a situation described to them would or would not obviously indicate a danger.

Carney Coal Co. v. Benedict (Wyoming), 140 Pacific, 1013, p. 1018, May, 1914.

JUDICIAL NOTICE.

While neither a court nor jury can properly take judicial notice of how a coal mine should be operated, or what is practicable and good usage among prudent operators, yet where the negligence of an operator is shown to be gross, resulting in the death of a miner, neither courts nor juries may properly shut their eyes, forswear their judgment, and await the coming in of expert testimony concerning some physical fact or omission of duty patent to everyone.

National Fuel Co. v. Maccia (Colorado), 139 Pacific, 22, p. 25, March, 1914.

PREVENTING OPERATIONS INJUNCTION.

TRADE UNIONS-RIGHT OF EMPLOYEES TO STRIKE.

An employee, or any number of employees, in the absence of a contract to work a definite time, has a right to quit the service of the employer without any reason or for any reason he may regard satisfactory to himself; and employees of a coal company have a right to protest to the employer against the employment or retention of a nonunion employee and to make the discharge of such nonunion employee a condition to their continuation in his employment, and

that unless such nonunion employee is discharged the union employees will strike, or the equivalent, will simultaneously cease to work; and if under such circumstances the nonunion employee is discharged by the common employer he has no cause of action against either the union as an organization or the members thereof as individuals. Roddy v. United Mine Workers of America (Oklahoma), 139 Pacific, 126, p. 127, January, 1914.

ENJOINING STRIKERS-PLEADING.

A bill for an injunction filed by a mining corporation against the Western Federation of Miners is sufficient for the purpose where, after formal declaration, it avers that the general strike was called and inaugurated by the defendant in the copper mining district of Lake Superior on a certain day; that 4,000 miners in the complainant's employ not allied with the defendant refused to participate in the strike and endeavored to continue work; that the defendant by threats and violence interfered with and drove them from their work, stopped the pumps at the mine, causing the latter to partly fill with water, thus forcing a suspension of work; that a condition of violence and lawlessness developed in the district where the strike prevailed beyond the power of the civil authorities to control; that from the day of the inception of the strike the members of the federation did unlawfully combine and conspire together with the unlawful purpose and by illegal and unlawful means to prevent the employees of the mining company from working at the mines, and to force the cessation of all operations, and that such members have assaulted and beaten many of the employees of the mining company and continued daily to make such assaults and beatings and threats of deadly harm, and do, systematically, by threats, intimidations, force, violence, assaults, picketing, threatening parades, riotous and threatening gatherings in large numbers, and by other unlawful means, interfere with and molest and disturb, without authority of law, the miners employed by the mining company.

Baltic Min. Co. v. Houghton (Michigan), 144 Northwestern, 209, December, 1913.

MINING LEASES.

LEASES GENERALLY-CONSTRUCTION.

COVENANTS CONSTRUED IN FAVOR OF LESSEE.

In oil and gas leases the compensation of the lessor is generally a royalty, and the covenants to be performed by the lessee which relate to the right to drill or explore for oil or gas are generally construed most strongly in favor of the lessor; but this rule has its limitations, and when a lessee has faithfully performed all his covenants and has discovered oil in paying quantities and the lessor is receiving the royalty as the lease contemplates, the lessor can not then invoke

this rule to aid him in dispossessing the lessee, and the lessee having performed his covenants he thereby obtained a vested interest in the oil and gas in the leased premises because of his exclusive right to drill, and the lessee holds such interest as security against the lessor. Burgan v. South Penn Oil Co. (Pennsylvania), 89 Atlantic, 823, p. 825, January, 1914.

NATURE AND CONSTRUCTION-CONSIDERATION AND RIGHTS OF PARTIES.

The holder of a State mining lease conveyed to another a one-fifth interest, the grantee at the time signing and delivering to the grantor a writing to the effect that under certain conditions the grantor would take back one-half of the interest conveyed within six months of the date of the sale, at the option of the purchaser, and such agreement is binding as an option agreement and is based on a sufficient consideration and the seller is bound by such contract though he did not in fact sign it, and the contract is capable of specific enforcement. Gregory Co. v. Shapiro (Minnesota), 145 Northwestern, 791, p. 793, February, 1914.

LICENSE TO MINE-KNOWLEDGE OF CONDITION-FORFEITURE.

A license to mine for a specified time can not be forfeited for the failure to pay a royalty amounting to no more than $4.30; nor can such a license be forfeited because the licensee made a verbal agreement with two persons by which they were to carry on mining operations "six months at a time" for a percentage of the ore mined, where the transaction was not a sale or assignment of the mining license, or any interest in the same, but the licensee was still the sole owner of the mining license and did not lose control of the mining operations; nor can the licensor forfeit the license for the failure of the licensee to do continuous mining, where it appeared that no work was done during the latter part of October and during the month of November, and where the licensor was aware of the fact and made no complaint at the time.

Gates v. Steckel (Missouri), 161 Southwestern, 1185, p. 1186, January, 1914.

LICENSE TO MINE-RIGHTS OF LICENSEE- -REVOCATION.

While a mere licensee acquires no estate or interest in the land, mines, or minerals, and had no possession sufficient to enable him to maintain a possessory action, yet the right to mine can not be revoked at will and he can not be arbitrarily deprived of this right under his license in the absence of some substantial violation of the terms and conditions imposed by the mining lease.

Gates v. Steckel (Missouri), 161 Southwestern, 1185, p. 1186, January, 1914.

The statute of Minnesota (R. L. 1905, sec. 2493) provides that an assignment of mining leases shall be signed by both parties, executed in the presence of two witnesses, duly acknowledged, with the approval of the auditor thereon; but this law is not a statute of frauds and was not intended to make invalid contracts relative to the property evidenced by a State mining lease when executed and conformable to the requirements of contracts relative to real property, and an agreement to repurchase within a specified time a certain ́ interest in a mining lease, though not in writing, may be enforced. Gregory Co. v. Shapiro, 145 Northwestern, 791, p. 794, February, 1914.

A coal lease or contract providing that "the words 'trustee and lessee' as understood herein shall be construed to mean successors, heirs, executors, and assigns" evinces an intention on the part of the parties to the contract to make the contract or lease transferable by assignment, and there is nothing to indicate that the term "assigns" should have reference alone to the assignee of the lessee.

Young Coal Co. v. Hill (Arkansas), 165 Southwestern, 292, p. 293, March, 1914.

LEASE OF COAL WITH RIGHT TO MINE-CONSTRUCTION AND

EFFECT.

A lease of all the coal underlying a tract of land with the right to mine and remove the same at a given price per ton as royalty is equivalent to a sale of the coal in place.

Trustees, etc., Kingston v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co. (Pennsylvania), 88 Atlantic, 768, p. 769, June, 1913.

A coal-mining lease providing that the lessor was to receive a certain stipulated royalty per ton for all coal mined and requiring the lessee to keep an accurate account of the coal mined and to develop the coal on the premises leased, and expressly providing that the failure of the lessee to pay the royalties stipulated should operate as a forfeiture of the lessee's rights, may be forfeited by the lessor and the lessee's rights terminated on failure of the lessee to pay the royalties according to the terms of the lease; and the lessor is entitled to recover damages for failure to prosecute the mining operations with diligence, and such damages are recoverable as incidental to the accounting for the unpaid royalties.

Pollak v. Stouts Mountain Coal & Coke Co. (Alabama), 63 Southern, 531, p. 532, November, 1913.