Parran v. Wilson

Sloan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit for a trespass on land, in which the appellant contends that the fourth line of her deed shall be run by course and distance, while the appellees’ contention is that the course and distance must be ignored and the line run to what they contend is a call. There are twenty-eight exceptions in the record, but, as this court is of the opinion that the appellees (plaintiffs) failed to produce any legally sufficient evidence of a call or monument at the end of the fourth line of the appellant’s deed, the running of that line by course and distance would defeat the appellees’ claim of a trespass on their land, and a verdict for the appellant should have been directed. By deed dated September 28th, 1917, the appellees, Samuel T. Wilson and Kate E. Wilson, his wife, conveyed to the appellant, Alice N. Parran, a parcel of land on the Magothy river in Anne Arundel 'County “containing fifty acres of land, more or less,” to the deed for which a plat was attached.

The tract, according to both description and plat, contains fifty acres. The fourth line of the deed, which calls to begin at the end of the third line, a point which is not disputed, runs “north two degrees east, twelve hundred and thirty feet to a point in the center of the outlet of Robinson’s pond,” and the fifth line runs “thence with the center of the ■outlet of said pond, north fifty-six degrees east three hundred and seventy feet to the shore line of Magothy River.” The evidence concerning the plat attached to the original deed is that the outlines of the land conveyed were as run .and described, and that Robinson’s pond was not located and ⁶⁰⁶ surveyed, "but was sketched ou the map< by the surveyor' without reference to- its exact but to its approximate location and. outline. The appellees rely upon the testimony of a surveyor and civil engineer, Edward V. Obonan, to support their claim' that “a point in the center of the outlet of Robinson’s pond” is a monument or call to which the fourth line must be run and must end, and according to his location the fourth line would run “north eight degrees forty-five minutes east, thirteen hundred and thirty feet.” As stated in the record, he-“determined the center of the outlet because it was there. It was a physical thing up- there.

There was no necessity to-determine it otherwise than go down and see it, the mouth-of the pond.” The fatal mistake in his testimony is that he-undertakes to locate the center of the “mouth” of the outlet, whereas the description in the deed says nothing about the “mouth” of the outlet, and the deed itself shows what is-meant by the outlet when, in describing the fifth line, it says* “thence with the center of the outlet of said pond north fifty-six degrees east three hundred and seventy feet to the shore line of klagothy River.” It is manifest from this language that the deed means and intends the “outlet” to be the channel or stream connecting the pond with the river. When the witness gave his location of the center of the mouth of the-outlet, he was merely expressing his opinion as to what the deed meant, and was not testifying to a fact from which the-jury could find a location for the fourth line of the deed, differing from its location by course and distance. It is the' province of the jury “to find facts and to ascertain the true-position of the object called for from the evidence submitted to them; but not to determine the question whether or in. what manner a call shall be gratified, or any question of construction arising upon the face of the patent (or deed).. That belongs exclusively to the court, whose peculiar province it is to expound patents according to the intention to be collected from the terms or expressions used, and not on matter or facts aMitnde." Thomas’s Lessee v. Godfrey, 3 G. & J. 142, 150 . “In construing grants the courts are to re ⁶⁰⁷ gard, and to be governed by, the intention of the parties, to be collected from the deed, if not incompatible with some rule or principle of law, and nothing extrinsic or dehors the deed is to be recurred to for ascertaining such intention, unless in the case of a latent ambiguity.” Carroll v. Norwood's Heirs, 5 H. &.

J. 163; Ramsay v. Butler, Purdum & Co., 148 Md. 438 , 129 A. 650 . As stated by Judge Alvey in Jones v. Syer, 52 Md. 211 , 216: “It is perfectly well settled that the deed must speak for itself, and that its obnoxious provisions cannot be aided, modified or explained, by extrinsic evidence.” It has been so frequently decided in this and other courts that course and distance must give way to calls and monuments that citation of authority is unnecessary. But in this case we are •confronted with the question as to whether “a point in the •center” of an