Buchanan Energy Team Achieves Big Win for Cumberland Mine

Buchanan Energy attorneys Matthew F. Burger and Daniel C. Garfinkel scored a big win in Pennsylvania Superior Court for our clients Pennsylvania Land Holdings Company and Cumberland Coal Resources. The win allowed the clients to move forward with the construction of a ventilation safety system.

The dispute involved a surface owner who tried to stop our clients from ventilating their mining operations at Cumberland Mine in Greene County, Pennsylvania. When the defendants would not allow access to their property, Burger and Garfinkel took action and filed a complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief, and an accompanying motion for preliminary injunction with the Greene County Court of Common Pleas. The court ruled in favor of our clients but the land owners appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

After we fully briefed and argued the matter, the Superior Court upheld our preliminary injunction citing that the client’s rights to ventilate did not expire when coal mining activities ceased under the land owners’ property. The court agreed that the potential harm by not installing the ventilation system to protect mining personnel would far outweigh any potential harm to the surface owners.

The decision serves as a successful precedent for the continued operation of the Cumberland Mine.