City of Baltimore v. Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Co.
| Decision Date | 19 December 1906 |
| Citation | 65 A. 353,104 Md. 485 |
| Parties | MAYOR, ETC., OF BALTIMORE v. BALTIMORE & PHILADELPHIA STEAMBOAT CO. BALTIMORE & PHILADELPHIA STEAMBOAT CO. v. MAYOR, ETC., OF BALTIMORE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Cross-appeals from Baltimore City Court; Henry Stockbridge, Judge.
Proceedings for the widening of Pratt street in the city of Baltimore eastwardly from its intersection with Light street. An award of benefits and damages was made by the burnt district commission of Baltimore City, which was modified on appeal to the Baltimore city court, from which the mayor of the city and the Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Company prosecute cross-appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before McSHERRY, C.J., and BOYD, PEARCE, SCHMUCKER, JONES and BURKE, JJ.
Joseph S. Goldsmith and Edgar Allan Poe, for appellant.
Thomas F. Cadwalader and Richard M. Venable, for the Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Co.
The cross-appeals in this case are from the rulings and inquisition of the Baltimore city court on appeals taken to that tribunal from an award of the burnt district commission of Baltimore City. The award made by the commission was of damages and benefits for the widening of Pratt street eastwardly from its intersection with Light street. Those two streets intersect each other at what is practically a right angle. The wharf running along the south side of Pratt street abuts on the north side of the navigable waters of the basin and the wharf running along the east side of Light street abuts on the west side of the same waters. The most important questions with which we have to deal relate to the respective water rights of the city of Baltimore as the owner of Pratt street and wharf, and the Baltimore & Philadelphia Steamboat Company as the owner or lessee of a portion of the Light Street Wharf. All of the land involved in the present controversy, including the beds of the two streets, was originally covered by the waters of the basin, and has been filled up from the north and west by the proprietors of adjacent lands under the provisions of Acts 1745, c. 9; Acts 1796, c. 45; Acts 1801, c. 92; Acts 1805, c. 94, or some of them. These acts have been construed by this court in Page v. Baltimore, 34 Md. 558; Hazlehurst v. Baltimore, 37 Md. 199; Horner v. Pleasants, 66 Md. 475, 7 A. 691; Tome Institute v. Crothers, 87 Md. 584, 40 A. 261, and other cases, and it will not be necessary for us to refer at length to their provisions. Such portions of them as bear specially upon features of the present case will be noticed hereafter. The portion of Pratt street with which we are concerned was condemned and opened of its present width of 70 feet under the act of 1817, c. 71, as a highway and public wharf, and substantial damages were awarded and paid to the owners of the land taken under the condemnation. The city thus acquired the wharf and riparian rights of the former owners of the land abutting on the north side of the basin. The steamboat company is the owner or lessee of contiguous lots on the west side of Light street, having an aggregate front, extending from Pratt street southerly, of about 151 feet. As appurtenant to each one of these lots the company also owns the wharf lying opposite it on the east side of Light street. The wharf extends back from the water 14 feet, so that the steamboat company has on the east side of Light street contiguous wharves 14 feet deep, with an aggregate front on the basin of about 151 feet. In front of these wharves the company has, under various permits from the city, constructed out over the water what is practically a continuous pier, projecting from the east side of Light street into the basin 11 1/2 feet at its north end, and 107 feet 10 inches at its south end, and having a diagonal water front on its east side of 184 feet, 5 inches. The steamboat company is also the lessee from the city, at an annual rent of $3,600, of a portion of the wharf on the south side of Pratt street, extending 200 feet easterly from the corner of Light and Pratt streets. The general situation at the southeast corner of Pratt and Light streets being such as we have mentioned, the burnt district commission, acting under chapter 87, p. 141, of the acts of 1904 and Ordinance No. 66 of 1904 of Baltimore City, undertook to add 50 feet to the width of Pratt street easterly from its intersection with Light street. In the process of widening the street, the commissioners condemned a strip of land 50 feet wide by 358 feet long lying immediately south of the original Pratt street. They divided this strip of land into three lots, designated "A," "B," and "C," for which they awarded damages. They at the same time assessed benefits upon three other lots, one lying in the basin immediately south of lots A and B, and designated "No. 312," the other two lying on the east side of Light street, designated "Nos. 313 and 314." All six of these lots were at the time covered by the navigable waters of the basin, with the exception of a strip of the Light Street Wharf, 50 feet 1 1/2 inches long by 14 feet wide, but over lots 313 and 314 and lot A were erected the piers, already referred to, owned or leased by the steamboat company. A number of plats appear in the record which do not entirely agree in their lines; but the following plat, made up from those filed by the commissioners with their return, designates the location and dimensions of the lots in question with sufficient accuracy for the purposes of this opinion:
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The commissioners awarded $17,531.25 damages to the city and the steamboat company for lot A, which includes the strip 50 feet 1 1/2 inches long by 14 feet wide of Light Street Wharf, owned by the company, together with the pier built out from it into the basin, and also the pier along the south side of Pratt street leased by the company from the city. They awarded $30,000 damages to the city for lot B, which includes enough of the basin to make in connection with lot A sufficient area to widen Pratt street 50 feet for the distance of 208 feet 7 inches easterly from Light street. They awarded $15,000 damages to the state of Maryland for lot C, lying east of lots A and B and including enough of the basin to extend the widening of Pratt street for an additional 150 feet easterly. They assessed $5 benefits to the city on lot No. 312, lying in the basin immediately south of lot B, and they assessed $658 and $885, respectively, benefits to the steamboat company on lots Nos. 312 and 313, which lie in succession along the east side of Light street south of lot A and include a large portion of the wharf and pier of the steamboat company there being. Both the city and the steamboat company excepted to the awards and appealed to the Baltimore city court, where the case was tried without a jury before Stockbridge, J., who by his inquisition filed in that court allowed damages to the steamboat company for the value of the condemned portion of its Light Street Wharf and the improvements thereon, and the loss of its right to moor and dock vessels on any part of the 50 feet taken for the widening of the street and the deprivation of the right of access by water over those 50 feet, and the extinguishment of its lease of the Pratt Street Wharf and the improvements thereon, damages aggregating $28,162.50, and assessed nothing against it for benefits to accrue to the portion of its property not taken under the condemnation. He allowed the city only the nominal damages of $5, because he held that it will have the same wharfage and riparian rights to the south side of widened Pratt street and the water in front of it that it now has to the south side of the present street and the water in front of it. The city and the steamboat company thereupon took the present cross-appeals from the rulings and inquisition of the circuit court.
At the hearing in the court below the steamboat company offered eight prayers, of which the first, second, fourth, fifth, and seventh were granted, and the other three were rejected. The city offered no prayers. As both sides appealed, we will review all of the rulings on the prayers, and in so doing will dispose of all of the questions presented by the record.
The first prayer simply asserts that the owners of the lots on the west side of Light street who filled out their land to the east side of that street, according to the provisions of the acts of 1796, 1801, and 1805, acquired thereby the right to maintain wharves and load and unload vessels from and on them and to moor vessels to them and to dock them, in the waters of the basin on the east, to their respective wharves. As this prayer does not claim for the owners of the wharves any sole, exclusive, or superior right to the use and occupancy of the waters of the basin, it was properly granted under the authority of the cases of Page, Hazlehurst, and Horner, supra, in which it was held that, although the owners who had so filled out their land did not thereby acquire a technical fee in it, they did acquire a perpetual use of it for the purpose of erecting and maintaining the wharves, which is defined in Horner's Case as a "license or franchise," which, so long as it is used, the state can no more annul than she could a patent in fee.
The second prayer asserts that the steamboat company is the owner of the "property and rights" conveyed to it by certain enumerated deeds under which it claims title to its Light street lots and wharves. That prayer was properly granted.
The fourth prayer is really a corollary to the second, and asserts that neither the owners of the lots on the west side of Light street who had filled them out in accordance with the acts of Assembly mentioned, nor their successors in title,...
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