Gable v. Preachers' Fund Society

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from- an order sustaining the demurrei’ of the appellee to a bill in equity to enforce a mechanics’ lien, and dismissing the same as to the demurring defendant, but without prejudice to the rights of the complainants against the other defendants.' The bill was filed by Gable and Beacham, the material-men, against the appellee, a body corporate, and a number of other parties. So far as this corporation is concerned the facts appearing from the averments of the bill are substantially as follows: Frank L. Knell and wife were owners in fee of certain unimproved lots in the city of Baltimore, and being desirous of leasing the same and having improvements erected thereon by the lessee, in order to secure ground rents, on the 16th of July, 1878, agreed in writing, with Jesse F. and Thomas E. Hampton, to lease the lots to them, for the term of ninety-nine years renewable forever, by a good and sufficient indenture, duly executed, in the manner and form in whieh such leases are usually drawn, reserving a ground rent at the rate of $8.50 per front foot, aggregating the amount of $52.50 on each lot. The Hamptons then applied to the complainants to furnish them materials and lumber to be used in the construction of houses on these lots, and complainants, after knowledge of the terms of the written agreement to lease, and relying upon the final consummation of that agreement, and particularly of the condition that the rent to be reserved was to be $3.50 per front foot and no more, contracted with and furnished to the Hamptons materials and lumber for two of the houses which they were then building on Wo of these lots, to the amount of $926.84.

Afterwards on the 16th and 20th of December, 1878, while thg houses were in course of erection and before they were finished, Knell and wife executed a lease to the Hamptons of the two lots on which these two houses were being erected, reserving a ground rent of $5.50 per front foot, making $82.50 on each lot, and at the ⁴⁵⁸ saiñe time sold and conveyed their reversionary interest therein to the Preachers’ Eund Society. The hill then charges that this Society actually knew that the houses were in course of erection and unfinished at the time they took the conveyances of these ground rents; that the houses are not yet completed and the leasehold interest therein, since the ground rent has been thus raised from $52.50 to $82.50 on each lot, is insufficient to pay the complainants’ claim which they have duly filed within six months after the furnishing and delivery of the materials. They therefore claim a prior lien, not only upon the leasehold estate as now created, hut upon all the reversionary interest over and above the $52.50 to he reserved on each lot as mentioned in the original agreement to lease, and they pray that the lots and houses may he sold in fee, and the proceeds brought into Court, and after allowing the Society such amount as they may he entitled to, not exceeding the rent mentioned in the agreement, capitalized at six per cent, or the sum of $875 on each lot, that their claim may he satisfied out of whatever balance may remain over and above the expenses of the sale. It thus appears that the houses were built by the Hamptons, and the contract for mate rials was made with them as owners of, or as entitled to, a leasehold interest in the Tots.

It is a case therefore which falls within section 9, Art. 61, of the Code. That section provides that “ where a building shall he erected by a lessee or tenant for life, or years of a farm or lot of ground, or by an architect, builder, or