Galloway v. Shipley

Stone, J., delivered the ojoinion of the Court. By the fourth section of the Act of 1876, chapter 399, relating to the extension of streets and avenues in Baltimore County, it is provided: “That whenever it may be desirable to have any street or avenue, which may have been already laid off, ex-, tended beyond its present terminus, the owner or owners of a majority of front feet of ground bounding and fronting on any portion of said street or avenue as laid off, and including the line of the proposed extension, may make application to the County Commissioners of Baltimore County, in writing, setting forth the street or avenue that they desire to be extended, and the line, approximate distance, and point of termination of such proposed extension; and when such application is presented, the said County Commissioners shall,” &c. And the Act then goes on to prescribe with great minuteness the duty of the County Commissioners in the premises, and making provision for appeal from their action, &c., and also providing for the payment by the property holders of any assessments that might be made on their property to pay the costs of the extension. In 1887 there was an application in writing made to the County Commissioners of Baltimore County for the extension of G-orsuch avenue, ■ then lying within said ²⁴⁵ county.

This application was signed by the owners of a majority of the front feet of ground bounding and fronting on said avenue, as laid off, and including the line of the proposed extension. The Commissioners, therefore, proceeded to extend G-orsuch avenue in conformity to the. Act of ISTfi. The appellants, however, did not sign the application for the extension of the avenue, and when the bills for their portion of the expense, as property holders on the avenue, for such extension were presented, they resisted the payment.

The ground upon which they, the appellants, base their contest, is that two of the signers to the written application to the Commissioners, were married ivomen, and that their husbands did not unite with them in signing the application, and that, as without the number of front feet of ground owned by these married women, a majority of the front feet was not represented in the application, the whole proceeding was void. In other words that the signature of the owners of a majority of front feet upon the avenue was necessary to give the Commissioners jurisdiction, and that, as the signature of a married woman, unless coupled with that of her husband, was not a legal signature, the whole subsequent proceeding's were null and void. To this complaint the appellees have interposed various defences, but we shall only notice one which is decisive of the case. It is conceded that these married women were the owners of the front feet they signed for, and are thus certainly within the letter of the statute.

The statute says the owners must sign, and they were the owners, and did sign. Before we can deprive a married woman, owner, of the right the statute, by its terms, confers on her, in common with other owners, some other statute law, or some reasons based upon sound public policy, must be shown that will warrant us in so doing. This we think the appellants have failed to do. ²⁴⁶ In the case of Fowler vs. Jacob, 62 Md., 326 , a married woman hec-ame the purchaser at trustee’s sale of certain real estate. She failed to pay the whole purchase money, or give bond.

The land was resold at her wish by the trustee, and on such second sale there was still due a balance of the original purchase money, and for this balance this Court held her liable. The ground of this decision was that the statute gave her the unqualified right to become a purchaser at the trustee’s sale, and having that right, she stood in the same relation that any