Antietam-Sharpsburg Museum, Inc. v. William H. Marsh, Inc.

McWirliams, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. We shall be concerned here with an erstwhile landlord’s right to collect from his former tenant unpaid rent which accrued prior to the transfer of title to the purchaser. It may all seem somewhat frivolous when one reflects that 106 years ago the possession of the'demised premises was disputed by over 100,000 men, 20>000 of whom enriched its soil with their blood. In’ 1962 appellant (the Museum) was the owner of the 200 acre “Piper Farm” which lies within the Antietam-Sharpsburg battlefield and through a part of which runs the “Sunken Road,” sometimes called “Bloody Lane.” In January 1962 the Museum leased the farm to appellee (Marsh) on a month to month basis.

In September of 1963 the Museum entered into some kind of an arrangement with the United States. In the testimony it was said, in one place, to be a 60 day option to purchase. In another place it was said to be a contract of sale. Although a copy of the document was admitted in evidence it is not in the tran ²⁶⁷ script of the record.

Whatever it may have been, Marsh, for reasons undisclosed, thereafter stopped paying the monthly rent. On 30 June 1964 the Museum executed and delivered to the United States a deed to the “Piper Farm.” Marsh at that time owed 8 months rent which he refused to pay and to recover which the Museum, on 14 March 1966, filed suit in the Circuit Court for Washington County. The case was tried before Rutledge, J., without a jury, on 9 February 1968. At the conclusion of the Museum’s case Marsh’s “motion for a directed verdict” was granted.

Once again 1 we remind both bench and bar that the motion for a directed verdict, in these circumstances, is improper. Maryland Rule 535. Judge Rutledge did not give his reasons for directing the verdict nor did the Museum move to