Pioneer Hardwood Flooring Co. v. Felippe A. Broadbent Mantle Co.

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. On August 1st, 1912, the appellant corporation,' which is engaged in the manufacture of hardwood flooring, became the lessee of the first floor of a three-story factory building in the City of Baltimore, for a term of three years, under a lease providing for automatic renewals for successive' terms in the ⁶⁵⁰ absence of notice by either party to the contrary. The lessor corporation, which is the appellee in this case, also owned and was itself operating a neighboring factory plant including a one-story engine and boiler building with .which there was connected prior to the lease to the appellant a pipe leading from, the plant of a third manufacturing company and employed for the conveyance of shavings from the latter factory to the appellee’s engine room to he there used as fuel. The appellant’s lease provided that it should “have the right” to remove the shavings pipe from the pre-existing connections, and attach the pipe to the plant it was leasing and to that of the appellee, with a view to the disposition of the shavings produced in the course of the appellant’s manufacturing operations.

The change in the location and connections of the pipe was made by the appellant under the terms of the lease and at its own expense. About two years later the plant into which the pipe discharged was leased by the appellee to the Union Box Company. En March, 1918, while that company and the appellant were still in possession of their respective leased properties, the wall of the engine room with which the shavings pipe connected was found to be badly cracked and in such a dangerous condition that it was condemned and its removal ordered by the Building Enspector of the city. Upon this wall rested an iron trestle 26'feet high which supported the shavings pipe, and as this support was necessarily withdrawn when the wall was taken down, the pipe itself was disconnected.

Et was not restored to its former’ position after the wall was rebuilt, and for that reason the appellant brought this suit against the appellee, as lessor, alleging in the declaration as the ground of liability that the defendant caused the pipe in question to he disconnected from its premises and failed or refused to reconnect it, thereby depriving the plaintiff of its right under the lease to discharge its shavings through the pipe and subjecting it to great loss in its business. The trial Court ruled that there was no evidence in the case legally sufficient to sustain the action, and accordingly ⁶⁵¹ instructed the jury to find for the defendant. From the judgment entered on the verdict thus .directed the plaintiff has appealed. The only obligation -which the appellee assumed under the lease with reference to the shavings pipe was to permit the appellant to connect, maintain and use it in the position deseribed.

There was no agreement on the part of the lessor to keep the pipe or its supports in repair. That was a right which the appellant might have exercised, but it was not a duty which the appellee could be required to perform. Gluck v. Baltimore, 81 Md. 326 ; Kirby v. Wylie, 108 Md. 512 ; Cramer v. Baugher, 130 Md. 215 . The appellee corporation did in fact make repairs to the extent of rebuilding the condemned wall, but its