Gelston v. Sigmund

Bartol, J., delivered the opinion of this Court. This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City granting an injunction upon a bill filed by the appellee. In the same Court a similar injunction had before been granted on a bill and amended bill filed by the same complainant against the appellant and one Wolf M. Meyenberg. The respondents in the former case, (ante) after filing their answers and giving bond, had taken their appeal to this Court, whereby the injunction was stayed and its operation was suspended pending the appeal.

(Blondheim et al. vs. Moore, 11 Md. Rep., 365 .) When this bill was filed that appeal was pending and undecided. The object of this proceeding seems to have been to have the injunction reinstated, upon the alleged ground of newly discovered equity in the complainant, growing out of a disclosure made in the answers of the defendants in the former case, to the effect that before the summary proceedings under the Code had been instituted by Gelston against the complainant, to obtain possession of the property occupied by the complainant as his tenant, he, Gelston, had made a contract with Wolf M. Meyenberg leasing the same for two years from the first day of July, 1866. That fact, it is supposed, if it had been known to the appellee, would have furnished him with a goad legal defence under the 5th section of the 53d Article of the Code of Public General Laws, to the proceedings at law instituted by Gelston and pending in the Court of Common Pleas. This idea is altogether erroneous, and proceeds from a misconstruction of the section of the Code above referred to.

If the appellee were tenant of Gelston for a term which ended ‘on the 30th day of June, 1866, it would be no answer or legal defence to a proceeding instituted by Gelston to obtain restitution of the possession of the ³⁵³ premises, that he had made a contract of lease of the same to Meyenberg to commence on the 1st day of July, 1866. Under his contract Gelston would he bound to Meyenberg to give him possession of the premises, and would therefore be entitled to maintain his proceeding under the Code, to oust the tenant wrongfully holding over ; such a lease to commence after the termination of the appellee’s term was executory merely, and would furnish no legal ground for asserting that there was an outstanding,