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Property Keyed to Saxer
Ark Land Company v. Harper
Facts
In 2001, Ark Land Company (Defendant) purchased a portion of property belonging to several members of the Caudill family. The Caudill family had exclusively owned the land in West Virginia for nearly 100 years. Defendant sought to purchase the remainder of their property from the other Caudill family members (Plaintiffs) in order to extract coal from the entire property. The remaining members, however, refused to sell their land. Defendant thereafter sued to partition and sell the property. Plaintiffs, in turn, sought partition in kind. During proceedings, Plaintiffs presented expert testimony stating that the property could be partitioned in kind. But Defendant presented expert testimony calculating that partition in kind would result in an increase of several million dollars in mining costs. The circuit court ruled that partition in kind was inconvenient and ordered the partition and sale of the property.
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