Jewell v. State Roads Commission

Corrins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from an order sustaining the respondent’s, appellee’s, demurrer to complainants’, appellants’, cross bill of complaint. The State Roads Commission of Maryland, (the Commission), on September 8, 1955, filed a bill of complaint against Bertha K. Jewell, Ray Jewell, Joseph Pierce Jewell, Virginia Jewell, Joseph Henry Jewell, and Sylvia F. Jewell, in which it alleged that the Jewells on December 30, 1952, conveyed to the Commission by deed certain land for the Annapolis ByPass, a Controlled Access Arterial Highway, and' all rights of ingress and egress from such By-Pass to their remaining property, a filling station. The barriers put up by the Commission to deny access, as granted, had been removed by the Jewells.

The Commission asked that they be enjoined from breaking the denial of access clause contained in the afore ²⁷¹ said deed and for other and further relief. An answer was filed to that bill of complaint on October 10, 1955, in which the Jewells denied the material allegations of the bill and claimed that the aforesaid deed was procured in an improper manner by the Commission. On October 13, 1955, the Jewells, as complainants, filed a cross bill against the Commission. A demurrer, and answer, denying the material allegations of the cross bill were filed by the Commission.

After hearing, the chancellor passed an order sustaining the demurrer and dismissing the cross bill, without leave to amend. From that order complainants, appellants appeal. At the argument in this Court it was brought out that the Jewells have access to another public road. For the purpose of this case this cross bill alleges the filing of the original bill on September 8, 1955, and, among other things, the following.

Sometime prior to 1950 the Commission determined that it was necessary to construct the Annapolis By-Pass which was to be a Controlled Access Arterial Highway. Prior to the dissemination of general knowledge relative to the construction of said By-Pass and prior to the acquisition thereof, the Commission by one or more of its members, agents or employees “must have disclosed its plans” to Messrs. J. Donaldson Parr and George W. Della. Thus provided with such advanced information from the Commission, the said Messrs.

Parr and Della, during the years 1950 up to and including 1954, procured various tracts of land along said proposed By-Pass. The Commission conspired with Messrs. Parr and Della to grant access to their properties at various points along that By-Pass, despite the action of the Commission in designating and constructing the road as a Controlled Access Arterial Highway. When the Commission purchased the Jewell property in December, 1952, its representatives impressed upon them the “denial of access” feature of the Annapolis By-Pass and implanted in their minds the conviction that this highway was to be of a “non-access” type.

It failed to disclose that only Messrs. Parr and Della were to be accorded the exclusive bounty of access roads. Subsequent developments have convinced the Jewells of the utter bad faith in such capricious, arbitrary, collusive ²⁷² and discriminatory acts. They ask that the Commission be ordered and directed to grant unto them, the Jewells, the right to maintain a thirty-foot entrance into their gasoline filling station, permitting vehicles to pass thereto from the