Blitz v. Belvedere Convalescent & Nursing Home, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 June 1958
• Docket Number: No. 236,236
• Citation: 142 A.2d 826,217 Md. 248
• Parties: Louis BLITZ and Elsie Blitz, his wife, v. BELVEDERE CONVALESCENT AND NURSING HOME, Inc.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 248

217 Md. 248

142 A.2d 826

Louis BLITZ and Elsie Blitz, his wife, v. BELVEDERE CONVALESCENT AND NURSING HOME, Inc.

No. 236.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

June 13, 1958.

Howard Fine, Baltimore (Robert R. Cohen, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

Robert Hammerman, Baltimore (Gordon, Feinblatt & Rothman, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

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

BRUNE, Chief Judge.

The appellants-plaintiffs are the owners of an unimproved lot in a development known as Avondale Park in the City of Baltimore and the appellee-defendant is the owner of fourteen other unimproved lots in the same development. The area is in the vicinity of the new Sinai Medical Center now under construction and of Levindale, which is a home for the aged accommodating two hundred and thirty-five patients. There is another home for the aged in the neighborhood, housing over two hundred patients at a time. The appellee proposes to construct a convalescent and nursing home on land owned by it in Avondale Park. The appellants claim that this would constitute a violation of building restrictions imposed upon the lots owned by the appellants and by the appellee, and brought this suit for an injunction to prevent the construction of the proposed convalescent and nursing home. The case was submitted on a stipulation and supplemental stipulation of agreed facts; and after a hearing, the bill of complaint was dismissed.

The restriction claimed to be violated by the construction of a convalescent and nursing home is a restriction against the use or occupancy of a lot, or of any part thereof as an 'asylum.' The sole question is whether or not this covenant prevents the construction, operation and maintenance of a convalescent and nursing home. No zoning question is presented, and it is agreed that all of the lots in question are subject to the restriction against asylums. The case turns on whether or not a convalescent and nursing home constitutes an asylum within the meaning of the Avondale Park restrictions.

Those restrictions were first adopted and applied in 1919 and prohibit the use or occupancy of land subject thereto 'for the manufacture, brewing or distilling of spirituous, intoxicating or malt liquors, drinking saloon, asylum, bone boiling establishment, tannery or slaughter house or for the manufacture of glue, soap, candles, fertilizers, starch, gunpowder or for any other offensive or dangerous purpose or for the keeping of pigs or other animals of offensive character.'

The stipulated facts show that the proposed convalescent and nursing home is to be designed and landscaped in conformity with buildings nearby. They also show: that the home is to accommodate approximately one hundred persons who are in need of temporary nursing care and convalescence primarily of a post-operative nature; that the majority of the patients will return to their homes after a convalescing period and that many will return to their normal pursuits; that the patients at the home will be well advanced in their stage of recovery; that none will be mentally defective, insane, deranged, a nuisance or an alcoholic; and that if any patient should become acutely ill, physically or mentally, he would be removed to some other place at which proper medical facilities would be available.

The evident purpose of the Avondale Park restrictions was to prevent the use of land for purposes which would be offensive in a residential neighborhood, and the words used should be construed in the light of that purpose. Himmel v. Hendler, 161 Md. 181, 155 A. 316. Covenants limiting the free use of land are to be strictly construed. See Saratoga Bldg. & Land Corp. v. Roland Park Apt. Stables Co., 146 Md. 152, 128 A. 270; Bartell v. Senger, 160 Md. 685, 155 A. 174; Yorkway Apts. v. Dundalk Co., 180 Md. 647, 26 A.2d 398, and Millison v. Fruchtman, 214 Md. 515, 136 A.2d 240 (to cite only a few authorities).

Applying these rules to the facts of this case, we have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that the use of the appellee's land for a convalescent and nursing home here proposed does not violate the covenant against its being used for an 'saylum.' An interesting historical discussion of the meaning of 'asylum' will be found in State ex rel. Davis v. Bacon, 6...