Mullins v. Ray
| Decision Date | 11 November 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 64,64 |
| Parties | Bob B. MULLINS et ux. v. Bessie RAY et al. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Moses Davis and Julio E. Soltero, Baltimore, for appellants.
No brief--no appearance for appellees.
Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, HORNEY, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.
The appellants, Bob B. Mullins and Carolyn J. Mullins, his wife, filed an amended bill in equity in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County seeking to enjoin the appellees, Bessie Ray and Russell Walden Ray, from interfering with their use of a certain roadway located on a tract of land owned by the latter, and adjacent to a tract purchased from them by appellants. The bill also prayed for damages and for further relief. A certified copy of the deed from the appellees to the appellants was attached to the bill as an exhibit. The Mullinses sought and obtained an ex parte order granting a temporary injunction enjoining the defendants from interfering with the roadway. Appellants demurred to the amended bill assigning specifically as a ground the Statute of Frauds, and in addition filed a written motion to dissolve and rescind the order for injunction. The appellants answered the motion, and there was a hearing on both the demurrer and the motion, after which the court rendered a final decree on February 1, 1963, granting the motion and sustaining the demurrer. The record before us does not contain any opinion, written or oral, disclosing the grounds upon which the chancellor based the decree. Appellants here contest the correctness of this decree.
The facts set forth in the amended bill which, of course, must be taken as true for purposes of ruling on the demurrer, were these: On or about November 13, 1959, appellants purchased from appellees a certain tract of land improved by a dwelling house and situated on the south side of Dorsey Road, a state highway. A contemporaneous deed was executed and properly recorded. Frontage on Dorsey Road was about 150 feet and the lot had a depth of about 600 feet. Running the length of the west side of the lot was the roadway in dispute. The house was situated well back from and facing Dorsey Road, and between that road and the house was a lot of about one acre which had been under cultivation. Appellants used the roadway to get from Dorsey Road to the house, thus actually coming in from the state road by the side of the lot and house. Some time in November 1961 the appellees or their agents stretched across the entire width of the roadway a wire fence and posts, thereby preventing appellants from using it and precipitating this action.
The legal principles which govern here are well established in Maryland. As long ago as 1869, Judge Miller, speaking for the Court, said in Bladen v. Wells, 30 Md. 577, 581:
'No principle of law is more firmly settled than that which excludes parol evidence from being used either at law or in equity for the purpose of contradicting adding to, subtracting from, or varying the terms of a deed, or controlling its legal operation and effect, except where it is impeached for fraud, or where it is sought to be reformed upon the allegations of fraud, accident or mistake.'
This is generally referred to as the merger doctrine, and many decisions pertinent thereto are collected in 6 M.L.E., Conveyancing, § 94.
Another principle concerns easements raised by way of necessity. Where a grantor conveys a tract of land which has no outlet to a public highway except over his remaining land or over that of a stranger, a way of necessity over the grantor's remaining property will be implied. Condry v. Laurie, 184 Md. 317, 321, 41 A.2d 66. But we recognized in that same case that mere inconvenience is not sufficient to justify raising an implied easement. Only in cases of strictest necessity where it is not reasonable to suppose that the intent of the parties is to the contrary will this principle be invoked. Id., 184 Md. 322, 41 A.2d 68.
The appellants in their brief and oral argument claimed that the demurrer should have been overruled and the case permitted to be tried on its merits by allowing them to offer evidence at the trial to show that the case would fall within any one of the recognized exceptions to the requirements of Section 4 of the Statute of Frauds. The short answer to this proposition is that our reading of the bill discloses no allegation of fraud or mistake, nor anything...
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...remaining land or over that of a stranger, a way of necessity over the grantor's remaining property will be implied.” Mullins v. Ray, 232 Md. 596, 599, 194 A.2d 806 (1963). “The doctrine is based upon public policy, which is favorable to full utilization of land and the presumption that par......
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