Watts v. President of Port Deposit

Miller, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal must he dismissed because the record does not show any final judgment of the Court below, in the matter pending before it, which alone will authorize an appeal in such cases. It appears a petition for a mandamus was filed by the appellant, and to this, after the usual order, the appellees filed an answer. The petitioner then moved to quash this answer and for a peremptory mandamus, and this motion on being argued and submitted was overruled by the Court.

The petitioner then filed a demurrer to the answer, which the Court overruled with costs, and then as the record states, the petitioner on the same day prayed an appeal, which was granted. Applications for mandamus- and the proceedings thereon are conducted upon the law ⁵⁰² side of the Court, and are treated as proceedings at law and not in equity. To warrant an appeal there must therefore he a final judgment, in favor of the petitioner granting the writ, or a final judgment in favor of the defendant and dismissing the petition. No such final judgment appears in this case to have followed the overruling of the demurrer to the answer, and hence the appeal must he dismissed.

But such a judgment can be obtained and an appeal will then lie, and inasmuch as the merits of the case have been fully argued, and as we have no doubt upon the questions involved, we shall proceed to dispose of them, in order to save the parties the costs and expense of another appeal. It appears from the petition and answer that the appellant, on the 9th of September, 1871, brought an action at law against “The President and Commissioners of the Village of Port Deposit.” The declaration in that suit was filed on the 2nd of December, 1873, and after the usual pleas and a jury trial, the result was a verdict and judgment against the corporation sued, in favor of the plaintiff for $499.99, rendered on the 19th of December, 1874. The present petition, which was filed on the 21st of September, 1876, asks for a mandamus against the appellees, commanding and directing them to make a special levy, on the assessable property of the town of Port Deposit, sufficient to satisfy this judgment and costs. This is resisted by the appellees upon two grounds, in substance as follows : 1st.

Because during the pendency of the suit at law, the Act of 1872, ch. 347, was passed and went into effect, by means of which, there was such a change made in the corporation and its corporate name, as to render the judgment inoperative and void, and make it in effect a judgment against a corporation which had ceased to exist. 2nd. Because the appellees have no legal authority to’ levy a tax, to pay the judgment rendered against the corporation. ⁵⁰³ 1st. As to the first ohjection. By section 141 of the Code of Public Local Laws (Art. 8,) it is declared that “the citizens of the Village of Port Deposit, in Cecil County, are a body politic by the name of The President and Commissioners of the Village of Port Deposit, and as such may sue and he sued,” &c., and then follow a number of sections defining the powers and duties of this municipal corporation.

By the Act of 1872, ch. 347, these sections “are amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:” By this amendment it is provided that “the inhabitants of the Town of Port Deposit, in Cecil County, are a corporation by the name of President and Commissioners of Port Deposit, and by that name shall have perpetual succession, may sue and he sued,” &c. Now it is contended that as the suit was against the corporation by the name first given to it, and was prosecuted to judgment in that name, and as there is no saving clause in the Act of 1872, this amendatory law wholly made void the corporate powers of the defendant sued, and the judgment was in fact entered against a corporation which had ceased to exist, and could not therefore he enforced against the present corporation under its present corporate name. But we cannot yield assent to this proposition. In the case of Dashiell vs. The Mayor & C. C. of Balto., 45 Md., 615 , we had occasion to consider the effect upon existing powers, rights and