Gilchrist v. Chester

COUCH, Judge. In this case we are called upon to determine whether a certain deed conveying some 12.0 acres of property owned by Old Georgetown Associates Limited Partnership (OGA) to Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC) was a fee simple conveyance without restriction as to the use of the property but subject to an easement for a sewer and water line. The Circuit Court for Montgomery County held the deed to be a fee simple deed without any use restriction; the Court of Special Appeals reversed. Chester v. Gilchrist, 64 Md.App. 541 , 497 A.2d 820 (1985).

While several issues are raised by appellants, our holding as to the nature of the interest conveyed by the deed in question is dispositive. In 1973, OGA applied for rezoning of a 76 acre parcel of land located at the intersection of Old Georgetown Road and Nicholson Lane in Montgomery County known as the Wall-Luttrell tract; this rezoning was granted in 1974. The development plan submitted by OGA in connection with its rezoning application indicated that the subject 12 acre parcel in the northwest quadrant of the tract might be provided to Montgomery County for use as a school or use as a park if a school was found not to be needed. The subject property was subsequently conveyed to MNCPPC by a fee ⁴²⁴ simple deed dated October 28, 1977 expressly restricted only by a reservation of a water and sewer line easement to OGA.

Montgomery County had been considering for some time constructing an indoor swim center on the subject 12 acre property and proceeded to take the necessary steps to do so. Upon learning of the County’s plans, appellees, all residents of Old Georgetown Village and in close proximity to the subject proposed swim center, filed this action to enjoin the County and MNCPPC from proceeding with said swim center project. They maintain that OGA, grantor of the property, restricted its use to a local park. The County and MNCPPC contend, however, that the use of the property was not so restricted, that a fee simple title was conveyed subject only to the sewer and water line easement provided for in the deed.

In large measure the problem generated for the intermediate appellate court, and this Court, was the admission over objection of certain testimony of witnesses from OGA and MNCPPC which arguably could raise an inference that the conveyance here was a use restricted deed. In our view, giving this testimony controlling effect violated the well-settled rule against altering or changing the terms of an unambiguous writing by parol testimony. See Glass v. Doctors Hospital, Inc., 213 Md. 44, 57 , 131 A.2d 254 (1957); e.g., Department of Forests and Parks v. George’s Creek Coal and Land Co., 250 Md. 125 , 242 A.2d 165 , cert. denied, 393 U.S. 935 , 89 S.Ct. 295 , 21 L.Ed.2d 271 (1968). As we stated in Board of Trustees of State Colleges v. Sherman, 280 Md. 373, 380 , 373 A.2d 626 (1977): “[T]he clear and unambiguous language of an agreement will not give way to what the parties thought the agreement meant or intended it to mean; where a contract is plain and unambiguous, there is no room for construction, and it must be presumed that the parties meant what they expressed____” ⁴²⁵ Thus, if the deed in question was clear and unambiguous, in the absence of fraud and mistake, there was no need to construe it through the use of extrinsic evidence.

Turning to the deed, we conclude, contra to the conclusion of the intermediate appellate court, that its terms are clear and unambiguous and that the deed conveyed an unrestricted fee simple title, subject only to a sewer and water line easement. Preliminarily we observe that there is no allegation of fraud or mistake here, nor do we see any evidence thereof.