Bar Ass'n of Montgomery County v. District Title Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 January 1961
• Docket Number: No. 214,214
• Citation: 224 Md. 474,168 A.2d 395
• Parties: BAR ASSOCIATION OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. v. DISTRICT TITLE INSURANCE CO. et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 474

224 Md. 474

168 A.2d 395

BAR ASSOCIATION OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. v. DISTRICT TITLE INSURANCE CO. et al.

No. 214.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 18, 1961.

Opinion March 15, 1961.

Edward L. Foster, Silver Spring, and Robert E. Bullard, Rockville (David E. Betts, William N. Dunphy, and Lawrence A. Widmayer, Jr., Rockville, C. Edward Nicholson and Robert A. Wallace, Silver Spring, and John C. Keating and Walter H. Moorman, Bethesda, on the brief), for appellant.

J. Grahame Walker, Bethesda (Thomas S. Jackson, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for District Title Ins. Co., Lawyers Title Ins. Co., Washington Title Ins. Co., and Suburban Title & Investment Corp., part of appellees.

Joseph B. Simpson, Jr., for other appellees.

Simpson & Simpson, Rockville, on the brief for Realty Title Ins. Co., Inc.

Sasscer, Clagett & Powers, Jerrold V. Powers, Upper Marlboro, on the brief for Lawyers Title Ins. Corp. of Richmond.

Wilkes & Artis, James E. Artis and Louis H. Mann, Washington, D. C., on the brief for Realty Title Ins. Co., Inc.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, HAMMOND, HORNEY, and MARBURY, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

For reasons to be fully stated in an opinion to be filed later, the decree herein is affirmed for want of a sufficient interest in the appellant to entitle it to maintain this suit. Costs shall be paid by the appellant.

Opinion

HENDERSON, Judge.

This appeal from the dismissal of a bill for declaratory decree and injunction, without leave to amend, raises the simple question whether a County Bar Association has standing to sue in its corporate capacity to enjoin the alleged practice of law by other corporations. We advanced the case for argument and handed down a per curiam order, at the request of all parties, affirming the chancellor's decree. We now state the reasons for our action.

Maryland Rule 203 provides in effect that a suit shall be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest. The Bar Association of Montgomery County is incorporated as a private, non-stock, non-profit corporation organized for the general purpose of promoting the best interests of the legal profession and the administration of justice in Montgomery County and is dependent upon the dues of its members. It seems clear that it has no interest, apart from the interests of its members, in policing the practice of law, which, under Code (1957), Art. 10, sec. 1, is limited to individuals admitted to the bar. There is no express statutory authority to prosecute suits of the nature now involved but only to file charges and conduct proceedings against members of the bar as directed by, or as if directed by, the courts under sections 12 and 13 of the Article. See Braverman v. Bar Ass'n of Baltimore, 209 Md. 328, 336, 121 A.2d 473, certiorari denied 352 U.S. 830, 77 S.Ct. 44, 1 L.Ed.2d 51. It is conceded that the authority therein granted does not extend to or include a proceeding like the present.

It has been repeatedly held in Maryland that other incorporated professional, vocational, and class associations, seeking to restrain the unlawful practice of their particular profession or vocation, or to prevent injury to the class interest, have no standing to sue. See Dvorine v. Castelberg Jewelry Corp., 170 Md. 661, 185 A. 562; Crider v. Cullen, 191 Md. 723, 63 A.2d 618; Md. Naturopathic Ass'n v. Kloman, 191 Md. 626, 62 A.2d 538; Windsor Hills Imp. Ass'n v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 195 Md. 383, 73 A.2d 531; Beckett v. Housing Authority, 198 Md. 71, 81 A.2d 215; Ass'n of Independent Taxi Operators v. Yellow Cab Co., 198 Md. 181, 82 A.2d 106; Southland Hills Improvement Ass'n of Baltimore County v. Raine, 220 Md. 213, 151 A.2d 734; Sullivan v. Northwest Garage & Storage Co., 223 Md. 544, 165 A.2d 881. See also Miller, Equity Procedure, § 98. In the absence of statutory authority we see no basis for holding that Bar Associations, in the guise of private, non-profit membership corporations, occupy a preferred status over other types of professional associations. Indeed, the fact that the statute spells out the type of litigation in which they may engage is an indication that their powers are limited to litigation of that nature. As was stated in Graham v. Joyce, 151 Md. 298, 308, 134 A. 332, 336: 'The express imposition of this one qualification shows a deliberate rejection of any other.'

The appellant relies upon cases in other jurisdictions holding that Bar Associations may seek injunctive relief against the unlawful practice of law. In many of these cases, however, it appears that the bar has been integrated by statut...