Cahn-Coblens Co. v. Eisenberg

4 Balt. C. Rep. 148
CourtBaltimore City Circuit Court
DecidedJuly 13, 1922
StatusPublished

This text of 4 Balt. C. Rep. 148 (Cahn-Coblens Co. v. Eisenberg) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Baltimore City Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cahn-Coblens Co. v. Eisenberg, 4 Balt. C. Rep. 148 (Md. Super. Ct. 1922).

Opinion

BOND, J.

As was said at the conclusion of the argument in this case, however desirable it may be that there be a re-examination of the question of the applicability of the ground rent redemption statutes to leases for the mere occupation of buildings, that re-examination should not be made by the judge of the lower court. The only question open to discussion here is whether the rule oí Brager vs. Bingham, 127 Md. 148, is to be applied so as to require a redemption in the situation in which these parties stand. I have had the benefit of unusually able arguments on this, with many references to decisions upon various questions arising in the relation of landlord and tenant, and upon applications for enforcement of contracts in equity under various circumstances.

At the outset of the inquiry, I think it especially important to note that we may easily be led astray by too much dependence upon definitions and principles applied to relations and situations which differ from those of the parties here, although in external form they may be similar. Here we have to deal with a statute which has as its ultimate object a legal relation peculiar to the State of Maryland, although set up in a form familiar everywhere. While the originators of our ground rents made use of a form of lease, as if between an ordinary landlord and his tenant, it is well known to us all in Maryland that they in fact originated a form of investment, as Judge Miller states it in Banks vs. Haskie, 45 Md. 217, “to secure the prompt payment in perpetuity of the interest on a sum of money equivalent to tile value of the property in fee, at the time the lease was made, and on the part of the lessee io acquire a perpetual interest in the leased premises, which would justify bis making permanent improvements thereon, and enable him to avail himself of the value of the property thus enhanced, as well as of its increase in value arising from other causes.” By enlarging and making over somewhat the form of a lease, they managed to contrive a permanent ownership of the land in the one in the position of lessee, coupled with a permanent charge or annuity in the one standing as fee simple owner or reversioner. On both sides were to be permanent owners, one of the land and the other of the charge. Permanent ownership, it may be said, was divided.

In course of time the continued creation of these perpetual investments came to be regarded as detrimental to the public welfare, and beginning with the Act of 1884, Chapter 485, the legislature, in a series of enactments, provided that the rent reserved might; lie redeemed, upon a specified capitalization, under any lease for a term of more than fifteen years. The statutory provision to this effect has been by way of a broad, succinct statement, for the redemption of “rents reserved” under “leases of land,” and has not undertaken to provide qualifications and distinctions which are necessary to keep the statute within its purpose on the one hand, and to prevent evasions by avoidance of the strict letter on the other; and from this fact some important consequences have followed. In the interpretation and concrete application of a statute the function of a court varies according to the amount of the combined task iierformed by the legislature itself. Assuming there is a workable statute to begin with, iheii the courts have to do more or less in accomplishing tlie aim of the legislature according as the legislature has left them more or less to do. With this ground rent redemption statute the courts have had on a smaller scale much the same sort of function as that placed upon the Federal courts by the Sherman Anti-Trust; Act.

Inevitably there soon arose a case outside the letter of the statute, but which seemed to the court to accomplish the mischief aimed at, and the court had to uphold the purpose against evasion by avoidance of the letter. Stewart vs. Gorter, 70 Md. 242. And cases arose which were within the letter but outside the purpose, and the task of the court was then to protect [150]*150from the letter. Walker vs. Washington Grove Association, 127 Md. 504; Buckler vs. Safe Deposit Co., 115 Md. 228. Land is leased for a great variety of uses (embankments, wharves, piers, ways, for example) and there are probably many other instances in which the courts would have to distinguish between the full letter and the purpose of the statute.

So in the interpretation and application of this statute to any concrete case, it would seem to be from the purpose primarily that we must take our law — indeed, almost entirely so, for definitions and interpretations follow rather from the aim of the statute.

There are several separate questions to be studied, and I take them up in what seems to me a convenient order.

First, as to the length of the existing tenancy under this lease. Is it now of such length as to be within the operation of the statute? The lease was made for an original term of ten years, and contained a covenant for renewal at the option of the lessee for another term of ten years with the same covenants. The statutory provision attaches a right of redemption to “all leases or sub-leases of land for a longer period than fifteen years.” In Stewart vs. Gorter, 70 Md. 242, the Court of Appeals decided that a lease for a term of fourteen years with a covenant for renewals perpetually came within the provisions of that statute, and the similarity of the two cases in point of length of term, is apparent at once. It is suggested that the court was there dealing with a different case, however, in that the lease for fourteen years with a covenant which made it perpetual in effect was an obvious attempt at evasion of the purpose of the act, and that here we have a lease which provides for a sum total tenancy of twenty years at most, and is just as obviously not an attempt at evasion. I think it is true that in so far as the case is a different one it would be improper to carry out the statement of Judge Stone in its full breadth, without discrimination. But once we put aside the difference between a ground rent lease, and an ordinary lease between landlord and tenant for use and occupation of a building, there is little difference between the two leases, especially in respect to length of term. While Judge Stone did emphasize the fact that on his construction of the lease in Stewart vs. Gorter it imovided in effect for perpetual renewals, we must bear in mind that the statute did not stop with perpetual leases. It attached the right of redemption to leases for more than fifteen years, irrespective of any covenants for renewals beyond that period. And the question in both the ease of Stewart vs. Gorter and the present case is the same: whether a lease for a shorter original term, renewable beyond a point fifteen years from the beginning, is a lease for more than fifteen years. I do not see that the possible perpetuity of the tenancy adds to the question, or helps to solve it.

And I do not see that the intention of the parties helps to determine whether the lease is or is not within the operation of the statute, for the Court of Appeals has definitely taken a stand on the principle that the statute reaches any arrangement which might yield a tenancy of the length stated. The construction follows from the purpose of the statute here, as it has followed in other cases elsewhere. In the second volume of his work on Landlord and Tenant, Sec. 219, Mr. Tiffany has said:

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Bluebook (online)
4 Balt. C. Rep. 148, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cahn-coblens-co-v-eisenberg-mdcirctctbalt-1922.