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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 8, 1992                   TAG: 9201080217
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: BIG STONE GAP                                 LENGTH: Short

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LANDOWNERS' LAWSUIT CLEARED

U.S. Western District Court Judge Sam Wilson has cleared the way for Lee County landowners to press their lawsuit against a coal company accused of surface-mining their land without their permission.

He denied a motion by Powell Mountain Coal Co. to dismiss the suit on the grounds that, because Virginia's reclamation program has been approved by the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, the matter should be within the jurisdiction of state courts.

The number of landowners could number in the hundreds, according to Walton Morris Jr., the attorney who filed the suit. They are heirs of Susan Pruitt Cloud.

Morris, who recently joined the Gerald Gray law firm in Clintwood, represents Jo D. Molinary, trustee of the Susan Pruitt Cloud Land Trust.

The suit claims that Powell Mountain, doing business as Wax Coal Co., carriedout surface-mining operations on that acreage until landowners notified the Virginia Division of Mined Land Reclamation that they had not consented to it asrequired by state law.

The division revoked Wax's permit on Jan. 11, 1991, and ordered the company to reclaim the tract.

Molinary seeks monetary damages and injunctive and declaratory relief for unauthorized mining, and is asking that the suit be certified as a class action because of the numbers of landowners involved. Wilson rejected

the company's arguments that only state courts had jurisdiction, and said Congress intended to open federal courts to citizens' suits for violations of the U.S. Surface Mining Act. He has ordered that a hearing be scheduled on whether to certify the suit as a class action.

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