Law360 Canada ( September 9, 2022, 2:28 PM EDT) -- Appeal by the defendant Detour Gold from summary judgment concluding that the respondent Prism’s royalty interest was an interest in land. The appellant was the registered owner of certain mining claims and leases. It acquired its interest from Conquest Resources. By a 2004 letter agreement, Prism transferred its participating interest to Conquest in exchange for a carried interest in the project’s net profits. Conquest then sold its entire interest in a series of agreements so that by 2014, Detour owned both properties, subject to Prism’s interest. Prism sued Detour for a declaration that it had a valid and enforceable royalty interest in Detour’s mining claims and leases in two properties. Detour argued that Prism had only a contractual relationship with Conquest and that, upon the transfer of Conquest’s interest to Detour, Prism’s contractual interest fell away because it was not an interest in land. The motion judge rejected Detour’s argument that the intention of the parties to create an interest in land was not clear because the term property interest was not used in the 2004 Letter Agreement and found the parties to the 2004 Letter Agreement used sufficiently clear language to show their intention to create an interest in land, rather than just a contractual right to a portion of the substances recovered. She concluded that the royalty interest was an interest in land and not just a contractual interest. The motion judge concluded that the subsequent conduct showed that Prism’s royalty interests were considered by Conquest, and hence by its contracting party, Detour, to be a permitted encumbrance. She was satisfied that the Letter Agreement created a property interest which ran with the lands in question....