Ellis v. Bailey

Per Curiam. In February 1965 appellees (Bailey) acquired a y acre lot on White Neck Creek in St. Mary’s County. It is designated ⁵⁹² lot #4 on the plat hereinafter mentioned. In December of the same year Bailey sued appellants (Ellis), the owners of lot #2, alleging in the bill of complaint that Ellis “through spite” had barricaded a “road-way” used by Bailey’s predecessors in title “for the past 50 years” thereby denying Bailey access to the public road.

Both temporary and permanent injunctions against such interference were prayed. Ellis, answering promptly, denied all allegations except Bailey’s ownership of lot #4. A hearing before Dorsey, J. took place in August 1966. Counsel for Bailey offered an old plat (1938) showing 5 lots and little else, invited the chancellor to view the premises and then rested.

Ellis, his wife and Betty Ann Whitnower, their daughter, testified, but reading their testimony is somewhat like having an extended conversation with Mr. Charles Dillon Stengel. 1 Perhaps it all made sense to those present in the courtroom but we find the testimony, in large part, utterly incomprehensible. However, one noteworthy fact came to light during the hearing; viz., the owners of lot #3, through which the “road-way” passed, were not made parties. Counsel for both parties agreed this ought to be done. Apparently the chancellor visited the property that same afternoon.

Ten months later, upon the petition of Bailey, the owners of lot #3 were made parties defendant. On the same day, 15 June 1967, the chancellor signed a decree declaring that a “way of necessity,” although implied, had been “inadvertently left out of the deeds and plat” and establishing a 20 foot easement across lots #2 and #3. The cost of “clearing and grading” ⁵⁹³ was put upon the owners of “the servient lots.”