West Arlington Land Co. v. Flannery

80 A. 965, 115 Md. 274, 1911 Md. LEXIS 144
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedApril 4, 1911
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 80 A. 965 (West Arlington Land Co. v. Flannery) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
West Arlington Land Co. v. Flannery, 80 A. 965, 115 Md. 274, 1911 Md. LEXIS 144 (Md. 1911).

Opinion

Briscoe, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, in equity, passed on the 23rd day of August, 1910, sustaining a demurrer to a bill in equity, for an injunction, and dismissing the plaintiff’s bill.

The questions of law presented on the record are free from difficulty, and arise upon the following state of facts.

On the 9th day of July, 1909, the appellant, The West Arlington Land Company, incorporated, of Baltimore county, purchased of one of the appellees, the West Arlington Improvement Company, a body corporate of Baltimore City, a lot of ground, situate and lying in the Third Election District of Baltimore county, containing forty-eight and ninety-one hundred acres of land, more or less, and immediately adjacent tó West Arlington.

This lot of ground was subsequently laid off into building lots and platted for descriptive purposes. A copy of the plat *276 was filed among the Plat Records of Baltimore county and is filed as an exhibit in the case.

By the deed, conveying the property, it being only a part of the tract of land owned by the appellee company, the grantor in the deed expressly retained and reserved the title to a sewer pipe, which had been laid and constructed, for the purpose of a sewer or drain for West Arlington, with other rights and privileges stated in the deed. This sewer pipe extended through the granted property, through the other property of the grantor and crossing the property owned and controlled by Mount Hope Retreat, adjoining thereto.

The covenants and reservations contained in the deed, will be here set out, as they appear from the deed itself, which is filed as an exhibit in the case. They are as follows:

The West Arlington Improvement Company of Baltimore City reserves to itself, its successors and assigns, the title to a sewer pipe as the same is now located and constructed, extending through the property, together with the right and privilege of maintaining and operating at all times said pipe line as a sewer or drain for West Arlington, together with the right to enlarge the same by means of a larger pipe or by the addition of another pipe line laid parallel thereto should the capacity of the present pipe prove insufficient in the future, and the right at all times of ingress and egress over said property along the line of said pipe for the purpose of making all necessary repairs and doing all necessary construction work to said pipe line.

And the West Arlington Land -Company, incorporated, of Baltimore county, its successors and assigns, hereby covenants that it will reserve to the West Arlington Improvement Company in all its deeds the rights and privileges above mentioned with reference to the right of ingress and egress over said property for the purpose of making repairs to said pipe line as aforesaid.

And the said The West Arlington Land Company, incorporated, of Baltimore county, its successors and assigns, are • hereby granted the right and privilege at all times at its own *277 expense to enter or tap said sewer pipe and to connect the same with the sewer pipes from the houses to be hereafter erected upon said property so as to provide the same with a sanitary sewerage system, but no storm or surface water shall be permitted to enter or pass through said pipe, the same to be used only as a drain for sewerage. And in ease it becomes necessary to enlarge said pipe line b.y means of a larger pipe or by the addition of another pipe laid parallel thereto in the future, the said The West Arlington Land Company agrees to bear one-half of the total cost thereof.

The gravemen of the complaint, as charged in the bill, is, first, that since the execution of this deed, the appellee company of Baltimore City, has sold certain sewerage rights in the pipe to parties altogether foreign to the covenants and agreements, mentioned in the deed and that two of the defendants have purchased the right to lay a ten-inch sewer pipe across the land of the appellee, The'West Arlington Improvement Company, so that it will connect the plaintiff’s property, with the sewer pipe there constructed.

Secondly, the bill charges that on Saturady, July 16. 1910, Thomas J. Flannery, one of the defendants herein, and who is prominently identified with the Garrison Lumber and Supply Company, entered upon the property without the plaintiff company’s consent and against its protest, and with a large force of men tore up the fifteen-inch sewer pipe on its property for a distance of about sixty feet and laid in its stead an eighteen-inch pipe and leaving upon the property an open connection in the pipe line in which he built up a large brick wall and leaving on the property a “T” pipe with a ten-inch opening to enable the defendants herein, at their pleasure, to connect up with the sewer of ten inches to be brought over the lands of the appellee, Improvement Company.

Thirdly, it is averred that the Garrison Lumber and Supply Company, Mortimer W. West and Thomas J. Flannery defendants are laying the pipe for the purpose of carrying sewage matter from tracts of land now being developed east *278 of AYest Arlington, upon which property many hundreds of houses are now being erected and from which the sewage will be diverted to and across the plaintiff’s property which will do irreparable injury to the plaintiff’s property rights nnd so increase the easement now enjoyed by the Improvement Company of Baltimore City as to make the plaintiff’s property valueless.

Fourthly, it is alleged, that the easement reserved by the grantors was to convey sewage from AYest Arlington property which property lies between the southwestern side of Reisterstown Pike and the northeastern side of Buck’s lane, as per plat filed herewith and marked Complainant’s Exhibit FTo. 3.

The bill, then, charges, that the wrong done and being done upon the plaintiff’s property is not susceptible of adequate compensation in the ordinary course of law, but will cause irreparable damage thereto, unless the AYest Arlington Improvement Company of Baltimore City, The Garrison Lumber and Supply Company, Thomas J. Flannery, Mortimer AY. AYest, defendants, are restrained therefrom by this Court.

The specific relief asked by the bill, is for an injunction to restrain further trespassing and further damage to the plaintiff’s property, also to enjoin and prohibit the defendants from diverting sewage matter from other suburban developments beyond AYest Arlington across the plaintiff’s property.

On the 16th day of August, 1910, the defendants demurred to the bill, and filed the following reasons, as grounds of demurrer:

1st. That the allegations of the plaintiff’s bill are vague and indefinite, and do not fairly apprise the defendants or the Court of the facts upon which the plaintiff relies for relief in equity, and which the defendants are asked to answer.

2nd. That upon the face of the bill and the deed filed by the plaintiff as Exhibit Fío. 1' it does not show that it has any title to the pipe mentioned in the deed and described *279

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Bluebook (online)
80 A. 965, 115 Md. 274, 1911 Md. LEXIS 144, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/west-arlington-land-co-v-flannery-md-1911.