Picking v. State Finance Corp., 336

• Decision Date: 06 April 1970
• Docket Number: No. 336,336
• Citation: 263 A.2d 572,257 Md. 554
• Parties: Ida M. PICKING v. STATE FINANCE CORPORATION.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 554

257 Md. 554

263 A.2d 572

Ida M. PICKING v. STATE FINANCE CORPORATION.

No. 336.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 6, 1970.

Ida M. Picking, in pro. per.

Walter I. Seif, Baltimore (Oscar W. Zenitz and Zenitz & Seif, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HAMMOND, C. J., and McWILLIAMS, SINGLEY, SMITH and DIGGES, JJ.

DIGGES, Judge.

This is an appeal by the plaintiff Ida M. Picking, from the action of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, Turnbull, J., granting summary judgment in favor of State Finance Corporation, one of three defendants.

Mrs. Picking, an attorney, by the first count of her amended declaration claimed compensatory and punitive damages for trespass because of the storing of a Ford automobile on a portion of her property located in Arbutus, Maryland. By her affidavit filed in the proceedings appellant states the Ford was initially sold by Joe Judge, a neighborhood automobile dealer, to Ralph Bennett Taylor and that when Taylor defaulted in the deferred payments Judge repossessed the automobile. He caused it to be placed on Mrs. Picking's property either by his son or by one of his salesmen, Melvin A. Yates. At the time Yates was renting a small apartment from appellant on her Arbutus property. The pleadings further show Taylor borrowed from State Finance $1320 as evidence by a note dated June 5, 1963. When the debt was not paid State Finance obtained a judgment against Taylor in the Superior Court for Baltimore City. This judgment was eventually paid and State Finance mailed Taylor an order of satisfaction. No chattel mortgage or other security document was executed creating a lien on the automobile in favor of State Finance. However, on Taylor's application to the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles for transfer of title he noted State Finance has a chattel mortgage dated June 5, 1963, securing an indebtedness of $1320. This notation does not create a lien on the Ford as the Department of Motor Vehicles is 'not a record office for the recording of liens' and a statement on a title application does not create such a lien. Auto. Accep. Corp. v. Univ. C. I. T. Credit Corp., 216 Md. 344, 139 A.2d 683 (1959).

This Court raises sua sponte (Maryland Rule 835 a 2) the issue of whether appellant had a right of appeal from the order of the trial court granting summary judgment. The record discloses Mrs. Picking claimed damages under the first count for trespass committed by co-defendants Judge, Yates and State Finance, alleging they had placed the automobile on her property, and by the second count she asserted a claim in trespass solely against Yates for his destruction of the attic in the apartment he rented from her.

Rule 605 a provides:

'Where more than one claim for relief is presented in an action, * * * the court may direct the entry of a final judgment upon one or more but less than all of the claims only upon an express determination that there is no just reason for delay and upon an express direction for the entry of judgment. In the absence of such determination and direction, any order or other form of decision, however designated, which adjudicates less than all of the claims shall not terminate the action as to any of the claims, and the order or other form of decision is subject to revision at any time before the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In Durling v. Kennedy, 210 Md. 549, 554, 123 A.2d 878 (1956), Parish v. Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Assn., 250 Md. 24, 98, 242 A.2d 512 (1968), and again in Harkins v. August, 251 Md. 108, 111, 246 A.2d 268, 270 (1968), we stated 'The purpose of this rule, which is identically the same as Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, is to prevent piecemeal appeals as far as possible, and thereby avoid the confusion, delay and expense which would be caused by having two...