Pittman v. Home Owners' Loan Corp. of Washington, D.C.
Decision Date | 01 December 1938 |
Docket Number | 64. |
Citation | 2 A.2d 689,175 Md. 512 |
Parties | PITTMAN, Superior Court Clerk, v. HOME OWNERS' LOAN CORPORATION OF WASHINGTON, D. C. [*] |
Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Ediwin T. Dickerson, Judge.
Mandamus proceeding by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation of Washington, D. C., a corporate instrumentality of the United States of America, against M. Luther Pittman, Clerk of the Superior Court of Baltimore City, to compel the defendant to record a mortgage upon the payment of ordinary legal fee for such service. From an order granting a writ of mandamus, the defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
William L. Henderson, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Herbert R O'Conor, Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellant.
Thomas F. Barrett, Jr., of Baltimore, and W. F. Evans, of Washington, D. C. (John I. Rowe and Risque W. Plummer, both of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.
Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, OFFUTT, PARKE, SLOAN, MITCHELL SHEHAN and JOHNSON, JJ.
In 1937, the General Assembly, by Chapter 11 of the Acts of its Special Session of that year, added to Article 81 of the Code, entitled 'Revenue and Taxes', two sections, 213 and 214, under the sub-title 'Tax on the Recordation of Instruments in Writing'. Section 213 provides:
Included in Section 214 are these provisions: .
The act of Congress creating the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, June 13, 1933, c. 64, § 1 et seq., 48 Stat. 128, 12 U.S.C.A. Ch. 12, Secs. 1461-1468, contains the following tax exemption clauses: Section 4, 12 U.S.C.A. § 1463.
A duly executed mortgage to the Home Owners' Loan Corporation on property in Baltimore City was presented by the Corporation to the Clerk of the Superior Court for the purpose of having it recorded among the land records of the City, but the Clerk refused to receive and record the mortgage because the Corporation declined to pay the recordation tax and charge imposed by the Act of 1937, in addition to the sum of $2.50 specified by the Clerk as properly payable for recording the instrument. The amount of the recording cost was tendered by the Corporation, but it claimed immunity from the recordation tax charges by virtue of the quoted exemption clause of the Federal statute and because of its character and functions as a governmental agency. The recording of the mortgage being necessary under the Maryland law for the adequate protection of the mortgagee's interest, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation petitioned the lower Court for the writ of mandamus to compel the Clerk to record the instrument upon payment of the ordinary legal fee for such service. A demurrer by the Clerk to the petition having been overruled, with leave to answer, but that method of defense not having been utilized, the Court ordered that the writ of mandamus sued for be issued. This appeal has resulted.
In our opinion the order below was justified, and its affirmance is required, by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Federal Land Bank v. Crosland, 261 U.S. 374, 43 S.Ct. 385, 67 L.Ed. 703, 29 A.L.R. 1. That decision reversed a decree of the Supreme Court of Alabama which refused to order the recording officer of Montgomery County to record a mortgage on receiving the usual recording fee, but without payment of an additional sum as a recordation tax. In the opinion of the United States Supreme Court, as delivered by Mr. Justice Holmes, the case was stated and discussed, in part, as follows [page 386]:
'The General Revenue Act of the State, approved September 15, 1919 (Acts Ala. 1919, p. 420), by section 361 Schedule 71 provides that no mortgage shall be received for record--'unless the following privilege or license taxes shall have been paid upon such instrument before the same shall be offered for record, to wit: * * * Upon all instruments which shall be executed to secure an indebtedness of more than one hundred dollars there shall be paid the sum of fifteen cents for each one hundred dollars of such indebtedness, or fraction thereof, which is secured by said mortgage * * * to be paid for by the lender, and no such paper shall be received for record...
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Montgomery Cnty. v. Maryland Econ. Dev. Corp., 2673
...United States.” Id. at 378–79, 43 S.Ct. 385. Relying on Crosland, the Court of Appeals of Maryland in Pittman v. Home Owners' Loan Corp., 175 Md. 512, 2 A.2d 689 (1938), aff'd, 308 U.S. 21, 60 S.Ct. 15, 84 L.Ed. 11 (1939), held that a Home Owner's Loan Corporation was entitled to have a mor......
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