Bankers' & Traders' Building & Loan Ass'n v. Elliott Building & Loan Ass'n

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The sole question in this case is whether the trial court erred in withdrawing the case from the jury on the plea of limitations. The facts of the case, briefly stated, were as follows: In December, 1928, a woman representing herself as Blanche May Glenn Glaseo, through Mortimer E. Bell, a real estate and loan broker, applied for a loan of $450 on a second mortgage on property No. 934 North Gilmor Street, Baltimore. The application was submitted to the Elliott Building & Loan Association, which made the loan, and the mortgage executed by the applicant, who impersonated the person who owned the property.

In December, 1929, the same woman came into Mr. Bell’s office for the purpose of securing a new mortgage on the same property for $800, out of which was to be paid to the Elliott Building & Loan Association the balance due on the previous mortgage. The appellant agreed to make said loan and thereafter, on December 16th, 1929, the new mortgage was executed by the applicant to the ap ⁴⁶³ pellant, which through its attorney paid to the appellee the sum of $376.30 for a release of the prior mortgage. On December 23rd, 1932, the appellant received information from an attorney representing the real Blanche ■May Glenn, the owner of the property, that neither of said mortgages had been executed by her, but had been executed by her sister, who forged her signature. Thereafter on February 20th, 1933, the appellant filed suit against the appellee for the sum paid it for the release of its mortgage.

To the declaration the defendant filed the two general issue pleas and a third plea, that the alleged cause of action did not accrue within three years prior to the filing of the suit, on which plea the plaintiff joined issue. There was no evidence in the case to show that defendant had any knowledge of the fraud, or had any reason to suspect that the woman, who Avas introduced by a reputable broker, was not the person she represented herself to be. The court granted a prayer that “there is no evidence in this case legally sufficient to shoAV that the alleged cause of action accrued Avithin three years prior to the filing of the suit, and that the verdict must be for the defendant.” This appeal is from the judgment on a verdict for the defendant. By Code, art. 57, sec. 14, Act of 1868, ch. 357, it is provided: “In all actions where a party has a cause of action of which he has been kept in ignorance by the fraud of the adverse party, the right to bring suit shall be deemed to have first accrued at the time at which such fraud shall or Avith usual or ordinary diligence might have been known or discovered.” The appellant relies on this statute.

In its brief it quotes from Wear v. Skinner, 46 Md. 265 , and Reeder v. Lanahan, 111 Md. 384 , 74 A. 575 , “that where a party has been injured by the fraud of another, and such fraud is concealed, or is of such character as to conceal itself, whereby the injured party remains in ignorance of it without any fault or want of diligence on his part, the bar of the statute does not begin to run until the fraud ⁴⁶⁴ is discovered, although there be no special circumstances • or efforts on the part of the