Rose v. Mayor of Baltimore

Alvey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This action was brought by the appellees against the appellant to recover the amount of certain promissory notes given for the purchase money agreed to be paid for two butchers’ stalls in the Richmond Market, one of the public markets of the City of Baltimore. It appears by the agreed statement of facts, that, after due notice given of the time, place, and terms of sale, fifty butchers’ stalls, and a good many others of different kinds, all in the Richmond Market, were offered for sale to the highest bidder, by and under the direction of the City Comptroller, on the 12th of December, 1872. At this.sale, the appellant became the highest bidder for and purchaser of two of the butchers’ stalls offered; the price bid for one being $1,600 and for the other $2,200.

In compliance with the terms of sale, he paid the Comptroller in cash, the one-fourth of the purchase money, and gave his six promissory notes for the remaining three-fourths, payable respectively at four, eight and twelve months from their date. At the time of paying the cash and passing the notes, the appellant accepted a receipt from the Comptroller describing the stalls, and stating that the stalls were sold subject to the ordinances that were then existing or that might thereafter be passed by the city, regulating markets. The appellant at once entered into possession ²⁶⁹ of the stalls, and continued to use and occupy them until sometime in the year 1815. During all this time he paid to the City Comptroller, under the ordinances regulating the markets, the annual rent and license fee required to be paid.

At the trial below several prayers were offered by the appellant, all of which were rejected; but there are only two questions presented for discussion on this appeal. 1. Whether, as contended by the appellant, the appellees sold a larger interest or estate in the stalls than they were authorized by law to sell; and 2. Whether all the necessary preliminary conditions had been complied with to enable the appellees to make a valid sale of the stalls. 1. It is admitted that the city corporation is seized in fee simple of the Richmond Market; that is to say, the corporation is seized in fee of the ground and the structures thereon; and that such ground was acquired under the Act of 1833, ch. 35, and the supplements thereto, for the purposes of such market and no other.

This being the nature of the title held by the city corporation, the power to dispose of the stalls, in that and the other markets of the city, is given by the Public Local Code, Art. 4, sec. 638, which is expressed thus: “The Mayor and City Council may lease, sell or dispose of the stalls and stands in any market, in any manner, and for any term they may think proper.” And it is now contended, that inasmuch as the sale of the stalls to the appellant was without express limitation as to the duration of the right, it was a sale of the entire freehold interest and estate of the corporation in the stalls, and that, as the corporation was required to hold the ground in trust for the public purposes of a market, such sale was in contravention of that special trust, and therefore it was made without legal authority. In other words, that the corporation has transcended its authority in making the sale of the stalls to the appellant. ²⁷⁰ This contention results, as we think, from a misconception of the nature of the right or estate acquired by the purchase of the stalls. The purchase of these stalls in a public market, like the purchase of a pew in a church, does not confer on the purchaser an absolute property, but a qualified right only. The right acquired is in the nature of an easement in, not a title to, a freehold in the land; and such right or easement is limited in duration to the existence of the market, and is to be understood as acquired subject to such changes and modifications in the market, during its existence, as the public needs may require.

The purchase confers an exclusive right to occupy the particular stalls, with their appendages, for the purposes of the market and none other. If the owner be disturbed in the possession of the stalls, he may maintain case or trespass, according to the nature and circumstances of the injury, against the wrong-doer. But he cannot convert them to any other use than that for which they were sold, and in this use of them he is required to conform to the