Goldsborough v. Coblentz

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On the 10th of May, 1910, Julian S. Carter, professing to act for and on behalf of the appellant, Charles Goldsborough, entered into a written agreement with Emory L. Ooblentz and W. Harry Haller, as trustees, by which Mr. Golds-borough was to purchase from the trustees two lots of ground on Eutaw Place and one on Linden Avenue for the sum of $12,350. The Eutaw Place properties were part of a trust being-administered under the Circuit Court for Frederick County, while the Linden Avenue property was under the jurisdiction of one of the Equity Courts of Baltimore City. For this reason on or about the seventh day of July a new contract for the sale of the Eutaw Place properties was entered into, for a named consideration of $7,250.

This second agreement was dated as of the same date as the original ³³⁰ contract, and signed by the same persons as the first agreement, and by Mrs. Fannie Fitzpatrick the cestui que trust for life. The sale as proposed to be made by the second agreement was finally ratified and confirmed by the Court on the 28th day of July. Then followed a succession of correspondence and interviews between Emory L. Coblentz, one of the trustees, and Caughy, Llearn and Carter, as representing the supposed purchaser, Goldsborough. These disclosed an objection to the title on the part of the attorney of the purchaser, in response to which on August 30th, the trustee, Ooblentz, declined to recognize the alleged objection to the title, and proposed that “the whole matter might be considered off.” Instead of this, further correspondence and interviews ensued, and sometime in October an understanding was reached by which the wishes of Mr. Oopenhaver, acting as attorney for Mr. Goldsborough in the examination of the title, were acceded to.

These involved a material amendment of the equity proceeding under which the trustees were to make title, and which took the form of an order passed on the 18th of October, 1910, rescinding and annulling the order of July 28, which confirmed the sale negotiated between the trustees and the appellant Goldsborough, and authorizing the withdrawal from the files, of the petition of the trustees for the ratification of the sale, and granting leave to the trustees to institute such further proceedings as they might ■desire to effect a sale of the property. At this point the relative positions of* the parties were the same as they had been on the 7th July, when the second agreement for a sale was made. At sometime, the date of which is not entirely certain, but prior to the taking of the testimony under the new proceedings which had been begun, the valuation of the Eutaw Place properties was, ■ at the suggestion of Mr. Oaughy, changed from $7,250 to $8,250, but the record does not disclose any written agreement entered into at this new price. ³³¹ It is tile undisputed testimony in this case that at the interview between Mr. Caughy and Mr. Coblentz, at which the agreemént was reached to take the proceedings suggested by Mr. Copenhaver, Mr. Coblentz stated that on effect of the proceeding would he to “involve a risk