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Brown v. Lober | 450 A.2d 984 (Super.Pa. 1981)

No one likes a broken promise. No one likes an unpleasant surprise. And no one likes to lose thousands of dollars. James and Dolly Brown experienced all three at once in Brown versus Lober, in which they learned that a promise about possession of land can be less than it seems.

The Browns bought eighty acres of land in Illinois in 1957. The grantor conveyed the property using a statutory warranty deed. Under state law, this deed included certain promises, or covenants, by the grantor.

One of these promises was the covenant of quiet enjoyment. This covenant is a guarantee that no one claiming superior title will disturb the grantee’s possession of the property, and that the grantor will defend the grantee against any such claims. In other words, the seller formally promised the Browns that no one else owned any part of the property.

In 1974, the Browns sold their mineral rights to a coal company for $6,000 to allow mining on the property. Two years later, the Browns discovered that a previous owner had reserved two-thirds of the mineral rights before the Browns bought the land. Therefore, the Browns owned only one-third of the coal beneath their property.

Despite all this, no one had come forward to assert ownership of the mineral rights on the Brown’s land. Nonetheless, the Browns had to renegotiate the sale of rights to the coal company. Instead of selling a full interest for $6,000, the Browns had to sell a one-third interest for $2,000. The Browns then sued their grantor for $4,000, the difference between the original sale and the renegotiated one-third sale.

The Browns claimed that their grantor had breached the covenant of quiet enjoyment, because the grantor had falsely promised that no one else had superior title to any part of the land. The Browns argued that this false promise had deprived them of their initial bargain with the coal company.

The Browns lost at trial, but the state court of appeals reversed. The defendant asked the Illinois Supreme Court to review the case, and the court agreed to do so.

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