Stoll v. Smith

Stockbridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. By the bill of complaint in this case the Court was asked to specifically enforce a contract of sale for two acres of land in Anne Arundel County. The defendant answered and set up- as the ground for defense that the appellees- could not, convey a good and merchantable title. ¹⁶⁵ The land in question was pail, of a larger tract of twenty acres. This had been sold in December, 1830, by William Legg as trustee under a decree of a Court of Chancery to the predecessor in title of the vendors in the contract of sale, the appellees here, and he and his heirs have been in actual, continuous and exclusive possession of the property since that time, a period of more than eighty years.

The sale made by Legg, trustee, was duly reported to the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, and an order of ratification nisi duly passed. The docket entries of that Court do not show any final ratification of the sale, and the proposed vendee under the contract refuses to carry out the sale, alleging this defect as a sufficient reason. It is not understood as denied that if the sale of 1830 had been between individuals, the title of the appellees would be good by adverse possession, but it is urged that because of the fiduciary character in which Legg was acting when he añade the sale, a different rule applies, and that no limitations can run as against a trustee. The case of Sharp St. Station v. Rother, 83 Md. 294 , is o*elied on as sustaining this position.

That ease differs from the present in one important particular, which at once distinguishes it, namely there was nothing to show the conditions under1 which the church entered into possession of the property, and whether or not there was a reverter if the lot was aased for other than the purposes specified iaa the deed. While at oaie time the objection now urged oaa behalf of the appellants would have been a valid one, the contrary has been the accepted rule ever since the decision of Lord Hardwicke, iaa Llewellin v. Mackworth, 2 Equity Cases Abridged, 579, and it lias been held that an adverse possession sufficient to bar the legal estate of a trustee was also sufficient to bar tlae