Smith v. Washington

McWilliams, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Both parties claim to own a small (0.439 acres) 1 lot in Upper Marlboro fronting 360 feet on the Washington-Marlboro Pike. The trial court declared the appellees, whom we shall call the Trustees, to be vested with title. Appellant (Smith) contends here, as he did below, that the evidence was insufficient to support the Trustees’ record title and that, in any event, he and his predecessors have acquired title by adverse possession.

We think the decision of the trial judge was correct. We shall discuss first the muniments of title on which the Trustees depend. In January 1845 Edward J. K. Scott and his wife conveyed the lot (herein called the church lot) to Benjamin Duvall and eight others, “in trust to build or cause or allow to be built thereon a house or place of worship for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America according to the rule and discipline” from time to time in force and effect. Vacancies caused by death or apostasy were to be filled by the remaining trustees upon the call of the minister “in order to keep up the number of nine trustees forever.” The stated consideration was $100. ³⁰⁴ The trustees built a church on the lot but they never bothered to fill the vacancies created in their number by death.

Little by little their number diminished until there came a day when there were no trustees. In 1898, “many years” after the death of the last survivor, the presiding minister called a meeting of the congregation to appoint successor trustees. On 21 March 1898 Frank Pinkney and eight others were named. Their appointment later was confirmed by a General Quarterly Conference of the church.

However, there must have been some skeptics in the congregation because later on a bill in equity seeking the confirmation of the new trustees was filed in the Circuit Court against the heirs of the original grantor, Edward J. K. Scott. The following excerpts from the opinion of the trial judge (Merrick, J.) are informative: “This cause being ready for hearing and being submitted upon Bill, testimony and answers of the minor children by their guardian ad litem.” * * * “It appears from the testimony that a church was built on said lot as required by and for the purposes of the trust, and therein for a number of years religious services were held according to the ritual and discipline of the beneficiary church. * * * and it appearing to the Court that the election of said Trustees as set out in the proceedings and proof in this cause, was in conformity with the ritual and discipline of said church, and each of them having assented to act as trustee and it appearing that the plaintiffs are entitled to relief in the premises. “It is therefore adjudged, ordered, and decreed by the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, sitting in Equity this 26th day of January, 1899 that Frank Pinkney * * * [and eight others] are hereby nominated, appointed, or confirmed, as trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church of the United States in America, to succeed the first named nine trustees set forth in the before recited deed in trust of Edward J. K. Scott and wife to Benjamin Duvall and others, dated November 24, 1845 * * * and that the title to the said ³⁰⁵ three quarter acres of land is hereby decreed to be vested in them and their successors in office, upon the like trusts for the same uses and with similar powers as are declared in the deed of Edward J. K. Scott aforesaid.” Another half century later, William Howard Washington and eight others, the third group of trustees (styling themselves Trustees of Marlboro Methodist Church, now known as Union [Memorial] Methodist Church [Upper Marlboro]), filed a bill for the specific performance of a contract to sell the church lot to Addison H. Ford, a member of the church, for $5000. Ford in his answer, after admitting that the complainants were properly constituted trustees, expressed his willingness to purchase the property if he could be assured that the title was “good and merchantable.” He alleged a break in the chain of title. The Land Records, he charged, revealed no connection between the present Trustees and the nine original trustees named in the 1845 deed.

Evidence in support of the allegations of the bill of complaint was produced and on 28 April 1959 Judge Fletcher decreed the specific performance of the contract. Ten days later Ford conveyed the lot to Union Memorial Methodist Church (Upper Marlboro), a Maryland corporation. Before turning to the muniments of Smith’s claim of title it should be noted that Joseph S. Wilson and his wife by a deed dated 5 September 1899 conveyed to the Vestry of Trinity Church in Prince George’s County a 12.5 acre lot adjoining the church lot to the west. The church lot is characterized in the Vestry’s deed as having been “formerly occupied by a Methodist Church.” Since the church lot now lay between the Vestry’s lot and the Marlboro Pike the Vestry undertook to acquire it and their efforts in that direction resulted in the deed which is the beginning of Smith’s title.

By a deed dated 29 June 1900 Charles W. Randall and four others, describing themselves as “Trustees for the Methodist Episcopal Church South (herein called the South Trustees), conveyed the church lot to the Vestry “in consideration of the sum of fifty Dollars” and the further consideration that the Vestry and its successors “will not cultivate or allow to be cul ³⁰⁶ tivated the property * * * but will keep the same as a graveyard as at present." (Both emphases supplied.) In 1947 the Vestry conveyed a part (6.88 acres) of the 12.5 acre tract and the church lot to Henry B. Clagett. It is worth noting that when the surveyor came to the church lot in the course of his description of the 6.88 acre part he identified the boundary between the church lot and the Vestry lot as follows, “thence with the lines of a cemetery * * In July 1953 the heirs of Henry B. Clagett conveyed the Vestry lot (6.88 acres) and the church lot to Gus Basiliko and wife. Two weeks later the Basilikos transferred both lots to Gale Realty Corp. Smith’s deed from Gale Realty Corp. is dated 7 March 1956. What happened to the church that was built on the church lot we do not know.

We do know, however, that some time around the turn of the century services were continued at another location and are now held at a new church directly across the Marlboro Pike. In 1957, the Reverend Mr. John L,. Winters, who was in his seventh year as pastor, received a telephone call from one of his members “that someone was cleaning off” the church lot. He said the attorney for the church instructed him to tell the trespasser “to get off that land immediately.” Smith admitted that “the preacher of the church across the street” told him to get off of the church lot.

I. Smith insists that in the 1898-1899 equity case the Trustees did not prove that they were the “duly elected successors of the trustees named in the 1845 deed.” It is certainly true that they were not elected in the manner and at the times stated in the 1845 deed. It does not follow, however, that their election was a nullity. Indeed, the manner of their election was specifically authorized by Chap. 388 of the Laws of Maryland of 1838, the relevant provisions of which are: “WHEREAS, it has been represented to this General Assembly, that there are within the limits of the State of Maryland, a number of houses of worship, with lots of land used as burying grounds, attached to them, which property is held in trust for such pur ³⁰⁷ poses, and doubts and difficulties have arisen, respecting the proper method of perpetuating the said trusts according to the provisions of the deeds whereby they were created, for the purpose therefore of removing such doubts and difficulties, and as it is the design of the act, and the several supplements thereto, of the act to which this is a supplement, to afford the means of perpetuating such trusts: — Therefore, “SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, That from and after the passage of this act, whenever any property has been, or shall hereafter be conveyed to trustees, for the use and benefit of any unincorporated church or congregation, which now exists, or may hereafter exist in this State, in order to be used for the purposes of worship and as burying grounds, or for either of these purposes, * * *." “Sec. 5.

And be it enacted, That whenever any property has been conveyed in trust as aforesaid, and by the operations of any cause, or causes whatever, the board of trustees shall have become entirely extinct, it shall and may be lawful for a new board of trustees to be created in such manner as is, or may be prescribed by the discipline and form of church government to which such property belongs, and said board of trustees when so created, shall be seized and possessed of the trust property, and clothed with the same power over it, as if it had been originally conveyed to them by the deed creating the trust aforesaid.” “Sec. 7. And be it enacted, That the provisions of this act shall not extend to any other than the Methodist Episcopal Church property, so held in trust as herein described.” Judge Merrick found as a fact that the election of the Trustees “was in conformity with the ritual and discipline” of the church ³⁰⁸ and, since the requirements of the statute appear to have been met, we think the trustees named in Judge Merrick’s opinion were de jure successors of the original trustees. Smith argues that Judge Merrick’s decree is ineffective because his predecessors were not made parties to the proceeding. To demonstrate how little merit there is in this argument one needs only to point out that the deed from the South