Roland Park Co. v. Hull

Briscoe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court: The questions in this case arise on a demurrer to a bill in equity filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, asking for an injunction to restrain a suit at law. The plaintiffs in the action at law are real estate dealers and owners of valuable real estate, situate in Baltimore County, which has been subdivided into building lots. The defendant is a corporation known as the Roland Park Company of Baltimore City, duly incorporated under the laws of the State of Maryland, and is engaged in the business of improving and developing land at Roland Park, Baltimore County. The declaration contains two counts, one for an alleged nuisance, and the other for trespass, in breaking and entering the ³⁰⁹ plaintiffs close.

The declaration states that the defendant corporation, prior to the 28th of April, 1897, purchased a large tract of land, known as Roland Park, lying north and west of plaintiff’s property and subdivided it into building lots, and in order to induce persons to buy and build on these lots it agreed to carry off the drainage from the kitchen, bathrooms and water closets of the purchasers of the lots; that it constructed near and almost adjoining the plaintiff’s property an extensive sewerage system, consisting of filters, drains, pipes, &c., into which more than twice each day, it wrongfully and in utter disregard of the plaintiff’s rights, discharged all the accumulations of the preceding twelve hours from over one hundred cottages, the contents of which is spread in a diluted condition through the system of pipes, &c., over a small area of lowland, called a disposal field, lying near to and almost adjacent to the plaintiffs property, from which arises a horrible, sickening, loathsome and disease breeding stench, which with the wind is carried upon the plaintiffs property, thereby interfering with its comfortable enjoyment and making it impossible to sell either the land or the lots, so that the property has been rendered utterly valueless for selling purposes. The relief asked by the complainant in its bill is placed upon two grounds; first, an equitable estoppel, and second, to prevent a multiplicity of suits. The demurrer to the bill was sustained by the Court below, and the plaintiff has appealed. The principal ground relied upon by the plaintiff in its bill to restrain the suit at law, is the alleged fact that the plaintiffs in the law case sold the defendant the land called “The Disposal Field,” and knew the exact purpose for which the land was purchased and the use which would be made of it, and they are equitably estopped from claiming any damage by reason of its maintenance.

It appears, then, that the object of the suit at law, as stated in the first count of the declaration, is to recover damages for a nuisance, resulting from the maintenance of the disposal ³¹⁰ field, and the defense, as disclosed by the bill in equity to restrain the prosecution of the suit, is based upon an equitable estoppel. This, then, being the nature and character of the defense, it is clear, we think, that if the facts as alleged constitute an