Bugg v. State Roads Commission

Singley, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case marks the end of a long trail which Mr. and Mrs. Bugg have travelled for some eight years. Because Mr. Bugg appeared in proper person in the court below and, on appeal, submitted on the brief which he filed in proper person, it seems appropriate to state in detail as many of the facts as can be gleaned from a rather meager record. Some time prior to June 1960, the Buggs purchased at a tax sale in Cecil County certain property located in the county which was assessed to the estate of William Cooper.

While there is a suggestion that the property which was sold approximated two acres, when the Buggs instituted an equity proceeding in Cecil County to foreclose any right of redemption to the land which they had purchased, it seems that Mr. Bugg took a surveyor to the property which he thought he had purchased and indicated what he believed to be the boundaries. The surveyor prepared a description and the Buggs ultimately received a deed signed by the county treasurer which conveyed to them the tract covered by the description, containing 14.16 acres. Since the record in that case is not before us, there is no way to shed light on this anomaly. In about 1962, the State Roads Commission (the Commission) having determined that 12.5 acres of the tract were required for the construction of the Northeastern Expressway, instituted proceedings for the acquisition of the required acreage in the Circuit Court for Cecil County and deposited the sum of $3,125, which the Commission believed to be the fair value of the property.

Presumably as a result of the Commission’s title examination, Charles McKeever, Marie K. Mc-Keever, Dorothy M. Shivery and R. E. Shivery were named as defendants, together with Mr. and Mrs. Bugg. Later, it was determined that Marie K. McKeever had died, leaving as her heirs at law her children, Charles McKeever and Dorothy M. Shivery, the latter being the wife of R. E. Shivery. Subsequent to the filing of the Commission’s suit, Mr. Mc-Keever and Mrs. Shivery brought action in ejectment against ⁴⁶¹ Mr. and Mrs. Bugg in Cecil County. The case was removed to and tried by the Circuit Court for Kent County and resulted in a verdict against the Buggs.

In that case, in which Mr. and Mrs. Bugg were represented by counsel, Mr. McKeever and his sister were able to satisfy the court that the 14.16 acre tract had been owned by one Philip Smeltzer; that they had acquired the property from the heirs of Philip Smeltzer; and that Mrs. Shivery had paid the taxes on the property from 1957 to 1961. The court properly concluded that a tax sale