Barchowsky v. Silver Farms, Inc.

659 A.2d 347, 105 Md. App. 228
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedJune 6, 1995
DocketNo. 1458
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 659 A.2d 347 (Barchowsky v. Silver Farms, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Special Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Barchowsky v. Silver Farms, Inc., 659 A.2d 347, 105 Md. App. 228 (Md. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

GARRITY, Judge.

This matter concerns a boundary dispute involving a lane that runs between the properties of two neighboring farms in Harford County, near Aberdeen, Maryland.

PROCEDURAL SUMMARY

On May 5, 1992, Nan Jay Barchowsky, appellant/cross appellee, filed a complaint for trespass and ejectment against Silver Farms, Inc., and Arthur and Marie Silver Coates, appellees/cross appellants, over a farm lane running between the properties of the parties. The defendants thereafter filed an answer and counter complaint against Ms. Barchowsky, the Maryland Environment Trust (MET),1 Robert I. Callahan, and [232]*232William B. Thompson,2 seeking a declaratory judgment that those parties had no right, title, or interest in the lane.

On March 21, 1994, the Circuit Court for Harford County (Close, J.) granted partial relief to both parties. Although principally determining that Silver Farms, Inc., was vested with fee simple title to the farm lane, the court concluded that a technical trespass to Ms. Barchowsky’s property had occurred, as a result of the location of a gate.

BACKGROUND OF FACTS

For the past 185 years, the Jay family and the Silver family have been neighbors on adjoining farms. This dispute centers on Ms. Barchowsky’s efforts to secure recognition from Silver Farms, Inc., of two points: (1) that the easterly boundary of her 83.96 acre farm corresponds to the center line of a lane known as Silver Lane (formerly known as Hoopman Mill Road or the Mill Road) that runs between her farm and the Silver Farms tract; and (2) that she and her successors have an easement by prescription over the remaining half of the lane in order to secure access to her cultivated farm fields from U.S. Route 40. For the last 63 years, four generations of farmers from the Osborn family have leased and farmed both the Jay and Silver fields that run along either side of the disputed lane. The Osborns gained access to both of these fields by way of this lane.

Both the Jay and the Silver farms originated from a larger tract of land acquired by Peter Hoopman in 1807. In 1809, Peter Hoopman (the great-great-great grandfather of appellee Marie Silver Coates) conveyed 165 acres of land to Frances Griffith, who later married a Jay. The 1809 deed did not mention the lane. The metes and bounds description of the Jay/Griffith tract included a call to a stone near the farmhouse, then continued “North 84 degrees East 72 perches to a stone.... ” The parties agree that the second stone, marking [233]*233the northeast corner of this tract, and therefore the easterly border of the property, cannot be found.

The lane originally ran from this second stone to Post Road but has since been shortened by the construction of the B & 0 Railroad, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and U.S. Route 40. The first indication in the land records of the existence of the lane appeared in a deed by the Jays to John Hopper for 50 acres in 1849 (hereinafter referred to as the “Hopper deed”). The Hopper deed refers to the disputed lane as “Hoopman’s Mill Road” and mentions that it intersected with the right of way of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad.

In 1883, Jeremiah P. Silver and John Jay conveyed strips of their lands to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, as described by respective plats attached to the deeds. Both of these plats clearly evidenced the dividing line between what was then the Jay and Silver properties as being the center line of the lane.

Ms. Barchowsky has lived on and off the Jay/Griffith tract all of her life but made it her permanent residence in 1960 after the death of her aunt, from whom she inherited the property. In 1962, Ms. Barchowsky hired Frederick Ward and Associates (Ward) to conduct a survey of the property in order to determine its boundary lines.

Using the boundary description contained in the 1809 deed, Ward was unable to locate the second stone that was to mark the easterly boundary line. Having noted that the 1809 deed called for a line running 72 perches (which equates to 1,188 feet) from stone to stone but being unable to locate the second stone, he determined that the easterly portion of the Jay/Griffith tract was the center of Silver Lane, using the lane as a monument. The distance was thereby extended an additional 6.7 feet to 1,194.78 feet. In explaining the basis of extending the boundary line to the center of the lane, Ward stated:

The only thing that we found was a fence post on the west side of this lane that we were discussing. And the distance was short of the 72 perches. And looking at all the evidence [234]*234we had, the railroad plats which called for the center line of the lane as the property line, the distances on the deed and the knowledge that historically, if there was a road very close to a property line, they usually used the center line of the road as the property line. The road is obviously old. I don’t know when it was put in, but it had obviously been there for a long, long time prior to 1962. So utilizing the evidence we had available in 1962, it was my determination that the proper location of that easterly boundary of the Barchowsky’s property was the center line of that lane.

Additionally, property line surveyor Vincent Nohe testified on behalf of Ms. Barchowsky. He placed the 1,188 foot point within 6.78 feet of the center of the lane, "within the traveled portion of the present roadway, which was about 14 feet in width at the end of the 72 perch line.

Relying on the Ward survey, Ms. Barchowsky, in 1978, executed a deed to the MET conveying a conservation easement in the Jay/Griffith tract. Additionally, in 1985, she executed a deed to Callahan and Thompson conveying fee simple ownership to 2.82 acres, which included a portion of the lane in question.

Ms. Barchowsky and her husband testified that they have casually used Silver Lane for walking, riding horses, and gathering firewood, while using another road to gain access to their residence. Neither Ms. Barchowsky nor any of her predecessors in title have paid for maintenance of the gravel surface of Silver Lane.

Silver Farms, Inc., was incorporated in 1972. Its stock is owned by Arthur and Marie Silver Coates who are also officers of the corporation. The corporation owns Silver Farms, consisting of approximately 344 acres of land containing planted fields and a tree farming operation. In 1874, William S. Bowman was hired by the Silver family to conduct a survey of the Silver property. The Bowman survey concluded that the Silver property extended “to the West side of the Mill Road.”

[235]*235The Coateses testified that the Silver family has claimed fee simple ownership of the entire road bed of Silver Lane and that they have never acknowledged that the Jays/Barchowskys have any right, title, or interest in the lane.

M. Kirk Ritchie, a surveyor, testified on behalf of Silver Farms and opined that the easterly boundary of the Jays’ property line runs near but to the westerly side of the gravel portion of Silver Lane, which he measured to vary in width from 9 to 11 feet. Ritchie stated that he had “no dispute with the measurements of the Ward survey. My difference of opinion is his opinion of the eastern property line [which in Ward’s opinion went to the center of the lane] not his measurement of distances.” He further testified:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Donohue v. Mavronis
Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 2025
Andersons v. Great Bay Solar
243 Md. App. 557 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 2019)
Webb v. Nowak
72 A.3d 587 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 2013)
HILLSMERE SHORES IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION, INC. v. Singleton
959 A.2d 130 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 2008)
Senez v. Collins
957 A.2d 1057 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 2008)
Gray v. Jenerette
52 Va. Cir. 138 (King George County Circuit Court, 2000)
Porter v. Schaffer
728 A.2d 755 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 1999)
Millar v. Bowie
694 A.2d 509 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 1997)
Mavromoustakos v. Padussis
684 A.2d 51 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 1996)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
659 A.2d 347, 105 Md. App. 228, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/barchowsky-v-silver-farms-inc-mdctspecapp-1995.