Coan v. Consolidated Gas, Elec. Light & Power Co.

• Decision Date: 24 June 1915
• Docket Number: 51.
• Citation: 95 A. 151,126 Md. 506
• Parties: COAN v. CONSOLIDATED GAS, ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER CO. et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

95 A. 151

126 Md. 506

COAN v. CONSOLIDATED GAS, ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER CO. et al.

No. 51.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 24, 1915

Appeal from Circuit Court, Baltimore County, in Equity; Wm. H Harlan, Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Bill by Margaret E. Coan against the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company and others. Decree for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed, and cause remanded.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, BURKE, URNER, STOCKBRIDGE and CONSTABLE, JJ.

Robert F. Leach, Jr., of Baltimore (Malcolm J. Coan, of Baltimore on the brief), for appellant.

E. M Sturtevant, of Baltimore, and Noah E. Offutt, of Towson (Edward Duffy and Henry W. Williams, both of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

URNER J.

The appeal in this case is from a decree dismissing, upon demurrer, an amended bill of complaint, which alleged that the plaintiff, Margaret E. Coan, is the owner of a valuable tract of land containing 100 acres, situated on the Patapsco river in Baltimore county, and that by reason of the proximity of the tract to the city of Baltimore it has been held by the plaintiff with a view to its disposition for residence purposes, this being the most advantageous use to which it is adapted. It was then averred that in October, 1913, the plaintiff was approached by the individual defendant, who was in reality acting as agent for the corporate defendants, but whose agency was then concealed, and who represented that he was serving as a civil engineer in certain extensive work then in progress on the Maryland Electric Railways System, and was desirous of purchasing a lot of ground upon which to erect a bungalow to be used by himself as a home, and to that end he wished to obtain a half acre of the plaintiff's land, which he had inspected, fronting upon the Patapsco river and immediately adjacent to the line of the railway upon which he was employed, and that if the plaintiff would sell him the lot, he would proceed at once to construct a portion of the dwelling at a cost of not less than $500, and would thereafter enlarge it to such extent that its total cost would be at least $4,000; that he had a number of friends who would be influenced by his purchase to buy lots in the same vicinity, and he would thus greatly aid the plaintiff in expediting the disposal of her tract for use as suburban dwelling sites. The bill charged that these representations were willfully false, and were made for the purpose of inducing the plaintiff to make the proposed sale, and were believed by her to be true, and she would not have sold the lot for any other use than the one stated in the offer; that as a result of these false representations she was induced to sell and convey to the individual defendant the half acre lot he had selected, with a right of way 12 feet wide to the Annapolis Road, for the sum of $1,000, with the distinct understanding and upon his repeated assurances that it was desired and would be used only as a site for a dwelling house. It was further alleged that the purchaser had in fact no desire to buy the lot for himself, and no intention to build a dwelling upon it, as he agreed to do, but was acting as the secret agent of the Consolidated Gas, Electric Light & Power Company of Baltimore, and of the other defendant companies, in pursuance of a preconceived plan to secure possession of the lot in question for the use of those corporations in establishing a pumping station to obtain a supply of water from the Patapsco river for their power plant at Westport; that the ostensible purchaser conveyed the lot to the defendant companies in February, 1914, and that she had been compelled to lay out a right of way 12 feet wide, from the lot thus conveyed, across her intervening land, to the Annapolis Road, a distance of 900 feet, along which the corporate defendants have constructed a line of poles and wires by which they intend to transmit electric currents for the use of their power and pumping plants. The bill makes a tender to pay to the defendants, or into court, the amount of the purchase price of the lot, and prays that the deed procured from the plaintiff under the circumstances described may be annulled.

If the purchase of the lot in controversy was in fact accomplished in the manner alleged in the bill of complaint, it was a gross imposition and fraud. The demurrer has the effect of admitting that the plaintiff's land could best be utilized for dwelling house sites, and that she desired and intended to dispose of it for such purposes exclusively, but that by means of the falsehood and deception of their agent, in reference to the observance of this settled plan of development, the defendant corporations have obtained a part of the land and are proposing to devote it to operations which will inevitably and seriously impair the value and availability of the remaining ground for its contemplated use. There can be no doubt as to the power of a court of equity to redress such a wrong.

In Gale v. McCullough, 118 Md. 287, 84 A. 469, the bill alleged that a tract of land was leased by the plaintiff upon the understanding that it was to be used only for the ordinary purposes of residence and occupation, but that the lessee was co-operating with other defendants in constructing a board sidewalk for use as a continuation of a public way thereby designed to be extended through the property contrary to the representations upon the faith of which it had been leased. The court refused to...