W.M.A. Transit Co. v. Parklawn Lounge, Inc.

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The course this case has taken has required the appellant to raise much ado about very little. Suit was filed below by W. M. A. Transit Company (WMA) to recover from Park Lawn Lounge, Inc. (Park Lawn), doing business as Dairy Land Park Lounge, Inc. (Dairy Land) the agreed price for charter buses hired to bring lady bingo players from Washington and way points to the Park Lawn at Jessup in Anne Arundel County, in order to benefit the Women’s Auxiliary of the North Arundel Hospital Association. ³⁵⁸ It appears from the record that John Roberts, Jr., is president of Dairy Land and that George O. Gillis is its manager, and that Gillis is vice-president of Park Lawn, the capital stock of which is in the name of Mrs. Roberts. It was stipulated that the traders and liquor licenses for the premises known as Dairy Land were applied for by, and issued to, “Park Lawn Lounge, Inc., trading as Dairy Land Park Lounge,” that Gillis was at times here pertinent “an officer and/or an authorized agent of Park Lawn * * *,” and that Park Lawn leases the premises known as Dairy Land from John F. Roberts, Jr. and Mary E. Roberts, his wife.

Gillis’ testimony was that he was manager of Dairy Land and vice-president of Park Lawn and that he needed no special specific authorization to bind these entities. It appears also that Roberts had been kind and generous to the Women’s Auxiliary in its efforts to raise money for the Hospital. He had turned over a hall at Dairy Land to the Auxiliary every Thursday night for bingo, he bought the bingo equipment, he had on occasion supplied spaghetti dinners for the ladies, and had told Gillis to arrange to have handbills and posters printed advertising the Thursday night bingo games and to arrange for the hire of certain buses that were to bring the bingo patrons to Dairy Land, including those of the appellant. WMA buses ran to Dairy Land from Washington on the tenth, seventeenth, twenty-fourth and thirty-first of January, 1963, and the total of the charges for their hire was four hundred sixty-four dollars.

Park Lawn refused to pay the bill rendered in this amount (apparently from Mr. Roberts’ remarks from the stand for what he considered to be failure of consideration in that the Transit Company “* * * sent empty buses over for the Ladies’ Auxiliary with not one passenger on them”) and WMA sued Park Lawn; its formal defense was that Gillis had hired the buses on behalf of the Women’s Auxiliary and not on behalf of Park Lawn and that only the Auxiliary was liable for the bill. Judge Duckett at the conclusion of the testimony said: “Mr. Roberts has been so kind to this North Anne Arundel Hospital, I think I’ll have to make the W. M. & A. contribute some ³⁵⁹ thing to it, too, so I’m going to split the claim and give judgment in favor of the plaintiff for one-half of the claim, two hundred and thirty-two dollars.” When counsel for the bus company pointed out that this vicarious judicial charitable contribution was improper because