Under the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act 1845, section 78, a railway company is entitled to prevent the owner, lessee, or occupier of a mine or minerals, from working minerals under or near the railway, provided the company makes ‘compensation for such mine.’
An owner of land let the minerals to a coal company for a term of twenty-one years. Under section 78, a railway company laid an embargo upon the working of a portion of the minerals. Even excluding the portion in question, the land contained more minerals than the company could exhaust during the lease. Held ( reversing the Court of Appeal), that the compensation payable by the railway company was the profit which would have been made on the minerals which were by the requirement of the railway company left unworked, and not merely a sum representing the increased expenses and loss incurred by the lessors and lessees in having to work other coal.
Judges:
Lord Chancellor (Loreburn), Lords Macnaghten, James of Hereford, and Atkinson
Citations:
[1907] UKHL 626
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Land
Updated: 27 April 2022; Ref: scu.622303