Ex post facto law or law impairing contract forbidden -- Rules of construction for mineral deeds relating to coal extraction.

(1) No ex post facto law, nor any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be enacted. (2) In any instrument heretofore or hereafter executed purporting to sever the surface and mineral estates or to grant a mineral estate or to grant a right to extract minerals, which fails to state or describe in express and specific terms the method of coal extraction to be employed, or where said instrument contains language subordinating the surface estate to the mineral estate, it shall be held, in the absence of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, that the intention of the parties to the instrument was that the coal be extracted only by the method or methods of commercial coal extraction commonly known to be in use in Kentucky in the area affected at the time the instrument was executed, and that the mineral estate be dominant to the surface estate for the purposes of coal extraction by only the method or methods of commercial coal extraction commonly known to be in use in Kentucky in the area affected at the time the instrument was executed.

Text as Ratified on: November 8, 1988.
History: 1988 amendment was proposed by 1988 Ky. Acts ch. 117, sec. 1; original version ratified August 3, 1891, and revised September 28, 1891.