Suit Filed against Bonne Terre Mine / West End

[Ze Hippo]

As a trained cave diver, I find it ridiculous that they make you work your way through the routes 1-50ish. Having to pay 90-150 each go. That means thousands must be spent at this location in order to get to the more fun routes. No lights is just stupid and unsafe IMO. I wish they offered a tech-diver option where we can just go do our thing.

 

[kelemvor]

Maybe this suit will wind up being a good thing. If the current operator goes away and a new one shows up who will actually pay the rent and bring some less restrictive policies. It doesn't seem like a stretch for that to happen unless Doe Run has some other idea in mind for the property.

 

[dewdropsonrosa]

My recollection is that there are multiple physical entrances to the mind, but West End Diving has the lease to the convenient one.

I'd love to see someone else build a shop and infrastructure at one of the other locations and make it accessible for trained cavers.

 

[Jayfarmlaw]

This dive is on my bucket list, but just a few hours more and I can be at the Great Lakes where you cant swing a dead cat and not hit a sunken wreck. I've tried several times to put a trip together, but Cozumel always turns out to be a better deal for me.

I get the rules. With the miles and miles of routes, it would only take one idiot to ruin it for everybody. Scuba has its share of idiots and Darwin has a way of weeding them out, with the negligence/ wrongful death lawsuit to follow.

If my schedule frees up his summer, I may put a trip together for a day or 2 at BT, then drive on up to Chicago for Pizza, 32 something Beer, Dipped Hot Italian Sandwiches, more local beer, Chicago Dogs, some local beer, a slice or 2, a little wreck diving, and a beer or two...... and maybe some local beer.

Rules suck, but with opportunities to get lost, run out of air, some overhead, and the American legal system...I get it. Panic and her brother Grim are on every dive.

Safe Travels Everyone!!

Jay

 

[edwants2dive]

Well I had been following this thread wondering what the outcome would be just looked the case up and found that there is a jury trial scheduled for June 3rd next year this one seems to have been postpone a bunch due to COVID ( go figure lol).

 

[Jsteele_pd]

I just seen in a local group where it's closed until further notice. Related to this it seems.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

That sux0rs for all the divers who have used and would use Bonne Terre as a dive site.

 

[Tigerpaw]

Bummer, it was on my list to dive this year.

 

[jseyfert3]

Dang it. I was planning on making a trip here with my partner in the next few weeks. After finding out they are closed, I started looking into this. I'm going to try to summarize this. Please note I am not a lawyer, and while I will do my best to accurately summarize, I may make mistakes.

Owner of the mine: Doe Run Resources Corp (Doe Run).

Dive operator: West End Diving - Bonne Terre, Inc (West End).

EDIT: Doe Run owns the mineral rights to the mine, not the land itself.

The top level summary:

This isn't actually an issue of non-payment of rent. Well, or maybe it was, and then West End may have used the trial to take possession of the mine through Adverse Possession?

West End and Doe Run had negotiations for West End to purchase the mine in 2006, but the sale never happened. In 2017 or 2019, Doe Run said they no longer wanted to sell, and I believe West End filed for breach of contract. This is the 2019 date mentioned above, which also was not for non-payment of rent (I think). The case wasn't closed until October 15th, 2024. The judgement of the case was an eviction of West End from the mine.

I'm not sure why it took until 4 days ago for the actual eviction to take place, since the case was closed October 15th, 2024, and the judgement included a standard 15 day from date of judgement order for the Sherrif to evict West End from the mine. That part is unclear to me.

West End has filed an appeal to the 24th Judicial Circuit, which is the court document that I based the vast majority of this information from. The appeal was filed January 21st, 2025. Honestly, from what I've read, it seem unlikely the appeal will go through.

There seems to be nothing preventing Doe Run from continuing to lease to West End. But my assumption would be that after going through 5 years of litigation with West End, Doe Run is not going to want to sign a new lease with them. My own thoughts are that Bonne Terre Mine, as a scuba dive destination, is no more, unless someone else signs a lease with Doe Run. EDIT: I'm not actually sure anymore. The owner of the surface land is trying to get Doe Run's mineral rights removed in court (Sadew III LLC vs Doe Run Resources Corp, 24SF-CC00182).

More detailed summary:

I found a court of appeals document from the 24th Judicial Circuit, with West End appealing on October 15th, 2024. This was appealing the results of a jury trial that took place from Sep 9th, 2024 to Sep 16th, 2024, the result of which ended with the 12-person jury unanimously in favor of the plaintiff Doe Run. After the trial, Doe Run file a motion to immediately enjoin all operations in the mine (enjoin means to cease in law speak, e.g. shut down the West End scuba operation).

Summary of the Background info of the case that West End is appealing:

• West End entered into a lease with St. Joe Minerals Corp in May 1976 to lease the underground mine.
• In May 1987, West End and Doe Run signed a lease that replaced the 1976 lease.
• Between 1996 and 2006, West End and Doe Run exchanged several letters negotiating a possible sale of the property from Doe Run to West End.
• Doe Run sent a letter Jan 8th, 2004 offering to sell the "Bonne Terre Mine" to West End for $70,000. The offer was contingent upon Doe Run reserving the right to access the underground workings of the mine, and the sale being a fair market value and consists of at least 80% cash. Offer was valid for 30 days.
• Jan 22nd West End sent a letter counteroffering $60,500, with 80% payable as cash at closing and 20% to be paid over 5 years with interest of 5% per year.
  • Letter was not signed, and questions exist regarding whether it was sent.
• Feb 10th, West End sent a letter asserting there was a phone call and Doe Run accepted the proposal to buy the mine for $65,000, payable in cash at closing.
• Jun 4th, 2004 West End sent a letter after hearing no response, with an enclosed proposed Agreement for Purchase and Sale for $60,000 cash.
  • Did not contain a description of the property being sold and requested Doe Run provide and attach descriptions of the property being sold.
• Mar 7th, 2005, West End sent a letter to Doe Run asserting that there were some phone calls between Doe Run and Doe Run said they wanted to make some revisions, but the deal was still on the table.
• June 26th, 2006: Doe Run sent a letter to West End, acknowledged Doe Run had verbally agreed to purchase price of mine (without specifying the agreed-upon price) but were waiting for confirmation on the fair market value before executing a sale, and expected to close before October 26th, 2006. This was the date of the extended written lease.
• June 27th, 2006. Doe Run receives letter confirming value of Bonne Terre Mine at $40-60,000.
• No actions were taken by either party after June 26th, 2006 regarding the sale for several years.
• This part confuses me: It says the offer of Jan 8th, 2004 was clearly rejected by West End, at least to the purchase price of $17,000. And then talks about a counteroffer Jan 22nd for $16,500 with certain payment terms, and a letter Feb 10th of $16,500 cash. Then says letter from West End June 4th listed purchase price of $60,000. I don't know why these prices are different than the ones listed above. West End asserts the agreed price was $16,500.
• The Court finds that the terms of the alleged contract are sufficiently indefinite, uncertain, or incomplete such that the essential terms of a contract for the sale of real estate have not been proven.
  • Even if proven, claim for specific performance is barred by 10-year statute of limitations.
• No evidence of specific closing date, except Doe Run saying sale was "imminent" and would "close well in advance of" Oct 26th, 2006.
• It would be reasonable to expect if an agreement was reached and contract formed by June 26th, 2006 as West End claims, that closing would occure before Oct 26th, 2006.
• Court rejects West End's arguments that a longer period for performance would be reasonable in this case.
  • West End argued that since negotiations took several years, it should also take several years to close. The court said "That does not follow."
• West End argued its claim accrued no earlier than 2017 or 2019, when Doe Run first said it no longer intended to transfer its interest in the mine.
• West End first pressed its claim for specific performance in its original counterlaim filed Sep 25th, 2019. So Doe Run's breach had to occur on or after Sep 25th, 2009.
• The Court found it unreasonable to expect the reasonable period of time for performance of the alleged contract to be 35 months.

Court Decrees:

• Against West End for Unlawful Detainer (eviction, Count II of Plaintiff's petition)
• Against West End for Breach of Contract (count III of Plaintiff's petition, which I don't have)
• Against West End (and two other parties) for their claim of Quiet Title Based on Adverse Possession (Count 1 of defendant's amended counterclaim)
• Against West End and two other parties for their claim to Enforce Contract by Specific Performance (Count II of defendant's amended counterclaim)
• Further ordered that Doe Run shall have restitution of the premises.
• Further ordered that the Sheriff of St. Francois County put Doe Run into immediate possession of the premises within 15 days (looks like a standard eviction judgement)
• Further ordered that costs of suit are taxed against West End, and Intervenors West End Diving & Salvage, Inc, and American Academy of Underwater Education, Inc.
• Further ordered that Plaintiff's motion to immediately enjoin all operations in the mine is overruled and denied.
• Further ordered that all other pending claims, counterclaims, motions, and matters are overruled and denied.

West End filed an appeal Jan 21st, 2025. The application says the issues they expected to raise:

• The trail court erred in allowing a counterclaim and affirmative defense involving equitable defenses to title to be tried in an unlawful detainer action.
• The trail court erred in allowing as taxable costs to Plaintiff, the costs for expedited deposition transcripts.

 

[jseyfert3]

The original news article linked no longer exists, and apparently Missouri did not allow public online access to court documents until 2023, so the original case linked I cannot view. That's why I don't know how much rent ties into this.

13 years of unpaid rent..... That's pretty ridiculous. I'm curious to see the response from the dive shop.

Interesting. 13 years of unpaid rent? 2019-13 = 2006, the year of the negotiations to purchase the mine. So what happened here? The sale fell through, for some reason, but also West End just...stopped paying rent?

I find this all very odd. Why did they not act to move on the sale? Why, after not moving on the sale, did they stop paying rent? It appears the written lease agreement expired that year, but most places have that if the written lease ends, and the lessee continues to pay, and the lessor accepts the payment, that a lawful extension of the lease automatically continues to take place.