detriment to a promisee

In 1878 the Pennsylvania Coal Company executed a deed that conveyed the surface of property but reserved in express terms the right to remove all the coal under the same. The grantee took the premises with the risk and waived all claim for damages that might arise from mining out the coal. The plaintiffs claim under this deed. On May 27, 1921, the Pennsylvania legislature approved the Kohler Act. The statute forbids the mining of anthracite coal in such way as to cause the subsidence of any structure used as a human habitation. The statute provides exceptions for land where the surface is owned by the owner of the underlying coal and is distant more than one hundred and fifty feet from any improved property belonging to any other person. The plaintiffs brought a bill in equity to prevent the Pennsylvania Coal Company from mining under their property in such way as to remove the supports and cause a subsidence of the surface and of their house. The Court of Common Pleas found that if not restrained the defendant would cause the damage to prevent which the bill was brought. It denied an injunction, holding that the statute if applied to this case would be unconstitutional. On appeal the Supreme Court of the State agreed that the defendant had contract and property rights protected by the Constitution of the United States. It held that the statute was a legitimate exercise of the police power and directed a decree for the plaintiffs. A writ of error was granted bringing the case to this Court. As applied to this case the statute is admitted to destroy previously existing rights of property and contract. The case involves a single private house. The statute ordinarily does not apply to land when the surface is owned by the owner of the coal. The Attorney General of the State, the City of Scranton, and the representatives of other extensive interests were allowed to take part in the argument below and have submitted their contentions here. The statute purports to abolish what is recognized in Pennsylvania as an estate in land. The question presented concerns mining of coal under streets or cities in places where the right to mine such coal has been reserved.

On April 10, 1902, Louisa M. Gerry leased the Hotel Bristol at the northwest corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City to Walter J. Salmon for a twenty-year term beginning May 1, 1902, and ending April 30, 1922. The lease required Salmon to convert the building into shops and offices at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars. All alterations became accretions to the land. While negotiating the lease with Gerry, Salmon entered into a joint venture agreement with Morton H. Meinhard. Meinhard agreed to pay half the funds needed to reconstruct, alter, manage, and operate the property. Salmon received sole power to manage, lease, underlet, and operate the building. Net profits were to be divided forty percent to Meinhard for the first five years and fifty percent thereafter. Losses were to be shared equally. The venture operated the reconstructed property at a loss in its early years and later at a profit. It generated substantial returns for both parties until the lease approached its end. In late 1921, Elbridge T. Gerry, who had acquired the reversion and owned adjoining lots on Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, approached Salmon alone after failing to interest other parties in a larger development plan. On January 25, 1922, Gerry executed a new lease to Midpoint Realty Company, a corporation owned and controlled by Salmon. The new lease covered the entire tract for twenty years with successive renewal options extending up to eighty years. It required demolition of existing buildings after seven years and construction of a new three-million-dollar building. Annual rents ranged from three hundred fifty thousand to four hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. Salmon personally guaranteed performance until the new building was completed and paid for. Salmon did not inform Meinhard of the negotiations or the new lease until February 1922. Upon learning of it, Meinhard demanded that the lease be held in trust for the venture and offered to share the guaranty obligations. Salmon refused, prompting this suit. A referee awarded Meinhard a twenty-five percent interest in the lease. On cross-appeals the Appellate Division modified the judgment to enlarge the interest to one-half of the entire lease. The defendants appealed. Separately, in 1917 Meinhard had assigned his entire interest in the joint venture agreement to his wife. She reassigned it to him before suit was commenced. Salmon continued to deal with Meinhard on the basis that the enterprise remained subsisting.

On October 27, 1982, during the closing days of the Minnesota gubernatorial election campaign, Dan Cohen separately approached Lori Sturdevant of the Star Tribune and Bill Salisbury of the Pioneer Press Dispatch. Cohen, a political associate of IR candidate Wheelock Whitney, offered each reporter copies of two public court records concerning DFL lieutenant governor candidate Marlene Johnson: a 1969 record of three counts of unlawful assembly that were dismissed and a 1970 record of a petit theft conviction that was vacated about a year later. Cohen requested and received promises from both reporters that he would be treated as an anonymous source. His name would not appear in any material connected with the documents. The reporters would not pursue questions about his source. The reporters were experienced and covering the gubernatorial election. They knew Cohen as an active Republican associated with the Wheelock Whitney campaign and promised to keep his identity confidential, intending to honor that promise at the time it was made. Cohen also met with reporters from the Associated Press and WCCO-TV, who likewise promised anonymity and received the documents. The Associated Press published the story while honoring its promise, while WCCO-TV did not run the story. After receiving the documents, both newspapers interviewed Johnson for her explanation. The Star Tribune assigned a reporter to locate the original court records, discovering that another Whitney supporter had checked them out the previous day. Editors at both the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press Dispatch independently decided to publish the stories while identifying Cohen as the source. On October 28, 1982, both newspapers published stories about Johnson's arrests and convictions. Both articles published Cohen's name, along with denials by the regular Whitney campaign officials of any connection with the published stories. The Pioneer Press Dispatch quoted Johnson as saying the release of the information was a last-minute smear campaign. Cohen was fired from his job at a Minneapolis advertising firm the same day. The Star Tribune subsequently published a column and cartoon criticizing Cohen's tactics. Cohen sued Northwest Publications, Inc., publisher of the Pioneer Press Dispatch, and Cowles Media Company, publisher of the Star Tribune, for fraudulent misrepresentation and breach of contract. The trial court ruled that the First Amendment did not bar the claims. The jury found liability on both claims and awarded Cohen $200,000 in compensatory damages jointly and severally against the defendants plus $250,000 in punitive damages against each defendant. The court of appeals upheld the jury's finding of a breach of contract and affirmed the award of $200,000 compensatory damages. The Minnesota Supreme Court granted petitions for further review from all parties.

Phillips Petroleum Company, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Oklahoma, produced or purchased natural gas from leased land in 11 states during the 1970s. It sold most of the gas in interstate commerce at prices regulated by the Federal Power Commission, later the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Beginning in the mid-1970s Phillips proposed price increases. It collected higher amounts subject to refund with interest if disapproved. Phillips suspended royalty payments to lessors until final Commission approval. It paid the suspended royalties of $3.7 million in 1976, $4.7 million in 1977, and $2.9 million in 1978 without interest after the increases were approved. In 1979 the Commission began investigating overcharges. In 1983 it issued an opinion ordering refunds. Royalty owners Irl Shutts, a Kansas resident, and Robert and Betty Anderson, Oklahoma residents owning leases in Oklahoma and Texas, filed suit in Kansas state court seeking interest on the suspended royalties. They sought to represent a class of 33,000 royalty owners later reduced to 28,100 members after 3,400 opted out and 1,500 could not be notified. Fewer than 1,000 class members resided in Kansas and only about one-quarter of one percent of the leases were located there. The Kansas trial court certified the class under a state statute modeled on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 on an opt-out basis. It sent first-class mail notice describing the action and the right to opt out. The court applied Kansas law to award interest at Commission rates followed by the Kansas post-judgment rate of 15 percent. After the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1984.