Hammond's Lessee v. Inloes

Tuck, J., delivered ,the opinion of this court. We are of opinion that the Court of Appeals has already settled most of the questions presented by the record before us. 11 Gill & Johns., 351. 1 Gill, 430 . 6 Gill, 121 . It is said, however, on the part of the appellants, that in view of the large amount of property involved in this case, and in another in this court, and of other property held under similar titles, it would not be improper for us to revise and overrule the opinions of our predecessors if we should think that they erred in deciding the cases which we have mentioned. The appellants found their right to recover upon the act of 1745, ch. 9, and other acts and ordinances of the city of Baltimore, in connection with their title as owners of part of a tract of land called “Mountenay’s Neck.” These have received a construction without which the grant of “Mountenay” ¹⁶⁵ can be of no service to the plaintiffs in maintaining their action ; yet, while they contend that that interpretation must be adhered to, as the law of the ease, by which valuable improvements made by others under a mistaken view of the law, and without any cost to the appellants, will be secured to them, unless the claim be defeated on other grounds, we are told that other opinions of the same learned tribunal pronounced in these cases, after full argument and consideration, are not to be regarded as authority.

We have not been able to discover a sufficient reason for making this an exception to the almost uninterrupted practice of all courts, of receiving their own decisions as of binding force. We are not prepared to say that cases will not arise in which we shall feel ourselves constrained to, withhold our assent to adjudged cases. The reported decisions show that this has been done, and it may occur again. But, in the language of Mr. Justice Earle, whose opinion has been invoked by the appellant’s counsel on this question, “the solemn adjudication of an appellate court of last resort, ought, on general principles of judicial propriety, to he approached with caution, and perhaps they should never be disturbed, except to settle some great rule of property the public interest requires to be reviewed.

On a second trial in ejectment between the same parties, and those claiming under them on the same subject, matter, I should say they ought to be considered conclusive, unless, which is hardly a supposable case, glaring injustice lias been done, or some egregious blunder has been committed. But to give the binding decision those conclusive qualities it ought, to be explicitly declared, and perfectly understood, and, to become the law of the case, it ought definitively to settle the rights of the litigant parties. If an exposition is given to a will or deed (and so of an act of Assembly) fully defining the rights of the parties, or any other opinion is expressed settling' the title to the thing in dispute between them, it should be deemed irrevocable, and never again touched, where the same persons and those claiming under them, are concerned in the contestation. If the Court of Appeals have disposed definitively of the subject, and fully and explicitly determined the rights of the parties, this court ought to yield to ¹⁶⁶ the judgment, whatever our individual opinions may be of its correctness.

This is not, however, in my apprehension the character of that decision &c. 5 Har. and Johns., 278, Hammond vs. Ridgely. We do not understand the counsel for the appellants as denying that, if on a second appeal it appears that the court below ruled in conformity with the principles settled by the previous decision, their judgment must be affirmed. It is manifest that in such a case no error can be imputed to the inferior tribunal. 7 Gill, 244, 333 . 1 Md. Rep., 394 . But it is said that we are not concluded by the opinion in Wilson vs. Inloes, though involving substantially the same titles and relating to property in the same city, and similarly situated.

The Court of Appeals in 1 Gill, and 6 Gill, followed the decisions in 11 Gill and Johns.; and so in 6 Gill, they considered that what had been settled in 1 Gill was no longer open for consideration. If as a general rule upon principles of judicial propriety, and in view of the importance of having the law fixed and certain, a court respects its own decisions even in analogous cases, there would seem to be more reason for adhering to them where the facts are the same, though between different parties. These cases demonstrate that neither the counsel nor the court were insensible to the importance of the subject before them. Three of the four judges who sat in Wilson vs. Inloes, 6 Gill, had decided Casey's appeal in 1 Gill.

After full argument and consideration the judgment of the court below was affirmed, in which C. J. Archer had united, so that we have the authority of five of the judges for what was there decided. Far from there being any reason, on the ground of public interest, or manifest error, for our reviewing that opinion, we feel no difficulty in recognizing it as an authoritative decision. Whatever, therefore, was decided in 1 Gill and 6 Gill must be taken as the law, unless it appears that the record presents a materially different case. The lessors of the plaintiffs, Wilson and Casey, claimed certain lots in the city of Baltimore, shown by the plat at page 487, 1 Gill, as incident to their ownership of parts of a tract of land called “ Mountenay's Neck," patented in 1663, which lots had become fast land by improvements made ¹⁶⁷ into the water, under the act of 1745 ch. 9, sec. 10, and other acts and ordinances of the corporate authorities of Baltimore, mentioned in the proceeding's.

It is conceded that, no part of Che property in controversy is embraced within the lines of “Mountenay.” The Court of Appeals in 11 Gill and Johns., 351, decided, that the act of 1745, granted a franchise to the owners of water lots ; that the vested right of improvement thereby conferred, and all improvements when made, no matter by whom, enured to the benefit of those claiming under the senior grant in that case, that is to say, that they became incident to “ Mountenay’s Neck,” and not to “ Fell’s Prospect” which was patented after the passage of the act. ; and also that the improvements authorised by that act were those to be made by improvers in front of their own lots, not of their neighbors, asilad previously been settled in 5 G. & J., 308 . The defendants, in both cases, afterwards, adapting their defence to this construction of the act of Assembly, and to show that the owners of “ Mountenay” had no authority themselves, to extend their water line, and could not, therefore, claim the improvements made by others, offered in evidence the patent of “ Bold Venture” granted to Oulton in 1695, by which, as they said, the State had, before the legislative grant of 1745, parted with all interest in and right over the land adjoining the water line of “ Mountenay ” as shown by M. N. on the plat. The court decided that the State had authority to make this grant although the land was covered by navigable water, and that the patent was not void for any reasons assigned by the appellant’s counsel, and which have again been urged before us. The necessary consequence of this pretension of the defendants, if sustained by the court,, would be to defeat the plaintiff’s actions, unless they could show that the State had, before the passage of the act of 1745, become reinvested with the title to what had been previously granted to John Oulton ; because, if the State did not then own “ Bold Venture, there was nothing on the water line M. N. of “Mountenay,” on which the act of 1745 could operate in favor of the owners of that tract.

They could not have extended their improvements beyond that line without encroaching upon the property of ¹⁶⁸ their neighbors. Accordingly the plaintiffs offered evidence to show that “Bold Venture” had escheated before the year 1745. The Court of Appeals, however, decided that such was not the effect of the evidence offered on this point, and that, as the act of 1745 did not grant any right acquired by the State subsequently to its passage, the pretensions of the plaintiffs, as derived under that act, must yield to those claiming under “Bold Venture,” patented in 1695. The defendants in this case had prayed the court to instruct the jury that “ if they find that the tract called ‘Bold Venture' was granted as given in evidence by the defendants, and that the same is truly located on the plats, then the patent of ‘Mountenay's Neck' gives no title to the lessor of the plaintiffs, to the lot of ground for which the defendants have taken defence.” This instruction the Court of Appeals ( 1 Gill 511 ,) held, should have been granted. “ Bold Venture" embracing all the land between the line M. N. and the city dock, covers, of course, the ground now in controversy, as effectually as if it had been fast land at the time “Bold Venture" was originally surveyed;” and (on page 512) “‘Bold Venture' bars the plaintiff’s recovery against any of the defendants ;” “ we approve the refusal to grant the plaintiff’s prayer in the fifth exception,” which was that upon the hypothesis there stated, the plaintiff was entitled to recover against all the defendants except Inloes.

In Wilson vs. Inloes, 6 Gill, the defendants offered three prayers, identical with those offered by them in the present case, as to which this court said, (page 171:) “In granting the three prayers of the defendant the court below merely carried out some of the undeniable rules of our ejectment law, and sustained the principles decided in Casey vs. Inloes, 1 Gill, 430 .” These extracts cleaily indicate that the Court of Appeals were of opinion that “Bold Venture" was a complete bar to the plaintiff’s actions, so long as they failed to show that it had escheated to the State prior to 1745. But the counsel for the appellants contend that if this had been the view of the court they would not have sent the case back for a new trial, and they rely upon what is said by the court at page 510, as evidence that the court did not intend to conclude ¹⁶⁹ them by the opinion and judgment in that case, viz : “ as far as regards any conflict of rights between these parties, Inloes and the other defendants had, under the act of 1745, a right to extend westwardly, in front of their lots, to the line of the eastern end of the city dock, extended northwardly • that is to say, to the west side of Caroline street, and no further ; and the lessor of the plaintiff had the right to extend her grounds to the city dock, at the south side of Lancaster street. Upon the foregoing views the plaintiffs’ fifteenth prayer ought to have been granted.” Although a procedendo will not be granted when this court can see that the plaintiff must fail in his action, it does not follow that the granting such writ implies that he must ultimately succeed ; and it could not have been discovered, from an inspection of the record, that the plaintiffs would not on another trial be able to meet successfully the defence on which the defendants had relied, by removing “Bold Venture” out of their way. As to the passage of the opinion above quoted it may be remarked that wo must consider what the court said in connection with the subject matter of the prayer then under consideration.

They were disposing of the exceptions in their order; not one word is said of “Bold Venture” in that part of the opinion, but it treats of a different portion of the evidence, and the rights of the parties to improve in front of their lots under the act of 1745, and without reference to the grant, of “Bold Venture.” But when the court, in order, reach the prayers of the defendants we perceive that they consider “Bold Venture,” in the face of all the testimony, as a flat bar to the plaintiffs’ recovery ; and, therefore, approve of the court’s refusal to grant their second prayer in the third exception, and their prayer in the fifth exception, in which that title had not been noticed by the plaintiffs. But it is contended that this case is now different in material respects, from what it was on the trial of the former appeal; and this difference is supposed to consist in the withdrawal of all the testimony relating to the escheat of “Bold Venture,” and to the death of Oulton ; and to the boundaries of said pact, and of the patent of “Roger’s Inspection,” and all papers relating thereto ; and in the