Mt. Sinai Nursing Home, Inc. v. Pleasant Manor Corp.

² Hammond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Two nursing homes in' Baltimore are locked in legal combat over a strip of land claimed by the appellants to be a public way established by long user and by the appellee Pleasant Manor to be its absolute property unencumbered by any easement, on which' it has now built part of its nursing home. The protagonists cater to the old, the ill, the weak, and the infirm but their owners are strong, resolute, determined and dogged in their litigious struggles. Mt.

Sinai. Nursing Home, Inc. and Alex Burkoff, lessee and owner respectively of 4613 Park Heights Avenue, sued Pleasant Manor ' Corporation, owner of adjacent property, 4615-17 Park Heights Avenue and a portion of the ground in the rear of 4619-4633 Park Heights Avenue, in order to obtain a declaration that they as complainants in an amended bill had an “easement or right-of-way” in or over Hentschel’s Lane (ten feet wide which runs east from Park Heights Avenue between 4617 and 4619 Park Heights Avenue), a strip of land running from a twenty-foot alley, referred to as the “first alley” (which runs north and south along the rear of the houses numbered 4619 to 4633 Park Heights Avenue and is the westerly end of the strip in dispute) some one hundred feet to another twenty-foot alley (the “second alley”) which runs north and south in back of houses on Pimlico Road parallel to the first alley. A twelve-foot alley runs east to Pimlico Road from the second alley. Complainants also sought an injunction requiring Pleasant Manor to stop building part of its proposed nursing home then in course of construction on the strip in dispute, to remove any obstructions and never thereafter in any way to obstruct or interfere with Mt.

Sinai’s easement of passage or right-of-way. The amended bill alleged that the portion of Hentschel’s Lane, ten feet wide, running from Park Heights Avenue to the first alley “exists by express grant in the chain of title,” and the portion running from the first ³ alley to the second alley “exists, as shown below, by implied grant, dedication, and long and continuous use.” It was alleged below that Mt. Sinai and Burkoff, “their tenants, invitees, and visitors, Baltimore City garbage collectors, and the public in general have used Hentschel’s Lane as an easement or right of way between Park Heights Avenue and the second 20 foot alley for more than 20 consecutive years. Such use has been actual, open, notorious, adverse, exclusive, hostile, continuous, uninterrupted, and under a claim of right and has given the Plaintiffs an easement or right of way by prescription in said Hentschel’s Lane up to said second 20 foot alley.” Two other supporting grounds for the claim of an easement were next alleged; the first “an implied grant or implied reservation thereof in their deeds and in the deeds of their predecessors in title,” and the second “a dedication thereof to the public in general and to themselves and their predecessors in title in particular as neighboring property owners and residents.” Pleasant Manor in its answer controverted all the pertinent and significant allegations of the amended complaint.

Judge Cullen heard an array of witnesses and considered various deeds, plats and documents, and held against the complainants on all three of their contentions. He found: “In the opinion of the Court, the testimony of the witnesses does not substantiate the Plaintiff’s contention that the usage constituted a prescriptive right to an easement over the land on the grounds of adverse possession or implied grant in the chain of title, or by dedication to the public. The continuous use of the area by the various delivery men servicing the nursing home is not well taken by this Court. The testimony of the Defendant’s witnesses of the impassable nature and pothole condition of the property ⁴ seems more plausible.

The Court lends considerable weight to the disinterested testimony of Officer John H. Erdman, whose description and occasional surveillance of the area leads this Court to believe that an occasional truck or automobile may have crossed the area in order to get' out to Park Heights Avenue or Pimlico Road, but the aspect of a continuous or uninterrupted use hardly seems possible. The Court also finds that the use to which the area was -subject was temporary and permissive in nature, and as a result can never ripen into an easement by prescription. “The Plaintiff’s argument that an implied grant by deed to use the' disputed portion of Hentschel’s Lane as an additional exit to another street is without merit. In Dalton v. Real Estate, 201 Md. 34 , it was held that when land is granted to various grantees, an easement can only be implied if it is reasonably necessary to the enjoyment of the land conveyed. In this case none of the grantees are landlocked, they all have access to an alley which will exit them on to a city street.

Necessity has not been proven. “Finally, the contention that the area of land in controversy was dedicated to the public again lacks essence. In order for land to be dedicated to the public, there must be an intention on the part of the grantor to offer the land in question to the public use and a manifest intention on the part of the municipality to accept the dedication thereof. Plaintiff’s contention in this area is completely devoid of any evidence of corroboration. The Court is of the opinion that the case of Chapman v. Rogan, 222 Md. [12] is