Plaintiffs, a couple owned a land near the famous Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. They discovered that there was another such spectacular cave beneath their building. They capitalized on it – branding it the “Great Onyx Cave”, built a hotel around it and charged tourists for entry. Unbeknownst to them, while the entrance to the cave was on their property, 1/3rd of the newly discovered cave extended beneath the land of the neighbour, Mr Lee.
Mr Lee who had not consented to the use of his property for tourism successfully sued for trespass and obtained one-third of the profits. In doing so, the court found that Lee’s rights extended below the surface of his land, and it referred to an important maxim:
cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum et ad infernos (to whomsoever the soil belongs, he owns also to the sky and to the depths).
This latin expression has been held to be misleading in other cases – See the Bernstein Case.
Edwards v Lee’s Administrator 96 SW 2d 1028 (1936, Court of Appeals of Kentucky)
