Tifel v. Jenkins

Boyd, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. An injunction was issued by the Court below prohibiting the appellees from trespassing upon or doing other injuries men ⁶⁶⁶ tioned in-the bill to some real estate in the possession of the appellants. • The appellees filed a petition in which they alleged certain irregularities in reference to the injunction bond that had been filed and also that all questions of title to the land in controversy had been determined in this Court in the case of Tifel v. Jenkins, in 93 Md. 744 , and asking that leave be granted to take testimony in open Court in support of the petition. The Conrt ordered that the approval of the bond be stricken out and the order granting the injunction be rescinded unless cause to the contrary be shown, and leave was granted to the parties to take testimony in open Court. After hearing, a decree was passed rescinding the order granting the injunction, and dismissing the bill.

An appeal was entered from that decree and also from the order to show cause, which need not be further referred to, in view of the conclusion we have reached. The decree does not state whether testimony was taken, but it refers to the opinion of this Court in the case above mentioned, and to the fact that there was argument by the counsel of the respective parties. It was apparently admitted in ■the Court below, as we understand it to be in this Court, that the property in controversy is the same that was involved in the former case between. these parties. The appellants contend, however, that that decision does not preclude them from having their title tried in a Court of law, and that they alleged such facts in the bill as entitled them to the injunction.

The case as presented by the record is peculiar, as the right to have the injunction issue was not tested by any of the methods usually followed in our chancery practice, but there can be no doubt that the Court below was right in rescinding the order granting the injunction when that case was brought to its attention in the way it was. It is therefore not necessary to make a critical examination of the bill for the purpose of determining whether the plaintiffs made such allegations of ownership, or their right to the property, as would entitle them on the face of the bill to the relief sought, and we will only briefly state the important facts in the former case. Mrs. Tifel ⁶⁶⁷ and her then husband conveyed to Mrs. Jenkins the property in controversy, in consideration of Mrs. Jenkins and her husband conveying certain property to her. They were sisters and had received the respective properties from their father’s estate.

Mrs. Tifel filed a bill in equity seeking to have those deeds set aside and vacated, alleging that her deed “was not her free and voluntary act, having been obtained from her by fraud,- and undue influence practiced upon her by the defendants.” The Court below dismissed her bill and this Court affirmed that decree—sustaining the deeds and clearly and emphatically determining the charges of fraud and undue influence against her, after giving the testimony full consideration. The opinion not only discussed the evidence taken in that case, but dwelt at some length upon the fact that their father had obviously valued the property which