Ridgely v. City of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 17 January 1913
• Citation: 87 A. 909,119 Md. 567
• Parties: RIDGELY et ux. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

87 A. 909

119 Md. 567

RIDGELY et ux. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 17, 1913

Appeal from Circuit Court, Baltimore County; N. Charles Burke and Wm. H. Harlan, Judges.

Condemnation proceeding by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore against John Ridgely of H. and Helen S. Ridgely, his wife. Judgment for petitioner, and defendants appeal. Affirmed and cause remanded.

Under Const. art. 3, § 40, forbidding the taking of private property for public use without just compensation agreed upon or awarded by a jury, and Acts 1912, c. 117, providing for the appointment of appraisers by the court, held, that the act did not impose a nonjudicial duty upon the court.

Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, THOMAS, PATTISON, URNER, and STOCKBRIDGE, JJ.

George Whitelock, of Baltimore, and T. Scott Offutt, of Towson, for appellants.

D. G McIntosh, of Towson, and S. S. Field, of Baltimore, for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court for Baltimore county condemning certain lands of the appellants for use by the mayor and city council of Baltimore in the establishment and protection of a new and larger supply of water for the city. The questions raised at the trial below related to the validity of Act 1912, c. 117, under which the proceeding was conducted, and to the necessity of the particular condemnation for the purpose proposed. The rulings upon the latter issue, as to which exceptions were reserved, consisted in the granting of a prayer defining the petitioner's rights in the premises under its charter, and in the refusal of an instruction that no legally sufficient evidence had been offered to sustain the application. These exceptions have not been pressed on appeal, and in our opinion the rulings to which they refer were proper. The questions argued were concerned with the validity of the statute referred to and they are fully covered by the opinion of the learned court below, upon the principles and reasoning of which we will rest our decision and affirm the judgment.

The opinion is as follows:

"The questions before the court are presented by the issue raised upon the seventh paragraph of the amended answer and by the demurrers filed by the petitioner to various paragraphs of the answers to the petition filed by the mayor and city council of Baltimore for a judgment of condemnation against the property described in the petition for the purposes mentioned.

"These questions are of more than ordinary importance, and have been fully and ably argued by the respective counsel. We have carefully considered the questions, and will state the conclusions to which we have arrived, and will give some reasons upon which our decision rests.

"It must be admitted that under Act 1908. c. 214, the petitioner, the mayor and city council of Baltimore, had the power to condemn the property described in the petition for the purposes therein stated. The real question in the case is whether the procedure for the acquisition of the property by condemnation shall be that provided by Act 1908, c. 214, as amended by Act 1912, c. 32, or by that provided by chapter 117 of the Acts of 1912. This involves the question, which is presented by the pleadings, of the constitutionality of the last named act. It is obvious, if that act be valid, that the procedure for the acquisition of land in the state by condemnation must be that provided therein. It was the evident intention of the Legislature to provide by the act a new and exclusive method or procedure for the acquisition of private property for public use by condemnation. This, we think, is plain from the language of the seventh section of the act, which declares that: 'The state, and any municipal or other corporation, commission, board, body or person, which under the laws of this state, has the right to acquire property by condemnation, shall acquire such property, if condemnation proceedings be resorted to, in pursuance of, and under the provisions of, this article, anything in any other public general law or public local law or private or special statute to the contrary notwithstanding; provided, however, that nothing in this article contained shall apply to or change the present law or procedure for the opening, closing, widening or straightening of highways.' If, therefore, the act be valid, the petitioner, having the power to condemn, properly instituted its proceedings under the provision of the act, and the petition which is filed was in all respects sufficient under section 2 of the act.

"The landowners have assailed the validity of the act for certain reasons, which may be grouped under the following heads:

"(1) Because it violates section 29 of article 3 of the Constitution, which provides 'that every law *** shall embrace but one subject-matter, and that shall be described in its title.'

"(2) Because the provisions of the act requiring the court to appoint appraisers impose a nonjudicial duty upon the court.

"(3) Because the proper notice to the landowner is not provided, and that under the act an owner might be deprived of his property without due process of law.

"(4) Because the act violates article 3, § 40, of the Constitution, in that private property may be taken under it for public use 'without just compensation as agreed upon between the parties, or awarded by a jury, being first paid or tendered to the party entitled to such compensation.'

"(5) (a) Because the act was not passed by the Legislature as it appears in the printed laws of 1912; (b) because it was not engrossed in both houses as required by the Constitution; (c) because an amendment to the bill striking out the provision relating to the appointment of appraisers was adopted by the Legislature, which amendment was omitted from the enrolled bill signed by the Governor.

"It is contended that the law as passed contained the following provision: 'From any final judgment of the court an appeal may likewise be taken within thirty days thereafter, but not afterward, and the record shall be sent up to the Court of Appeals within sixty days after the entry of said appeal.' Inasmuch as the enrolled copy, which was signed by the Governor and deposited with the clerk of the Court of Appeals, omitted this provision as to the right of appeal from the final judgment, it is contended that the act is null and void, and that the proceedings for condemnation instituted by the petitioner under it must fail.

"The first four reasons assume the act to have been constitutionally passed, and assails its validity upon the grounds assigned. The last reason urged is that the act as signed by the Governor was never constitutionally passed.

"The court is not concerned with the wisdom, expediency, or policy of the law, or whether it is any improvement upon the old system of condemnation. These are political questions, exclusively committed by the Constitution to the judgment of the Legislature.

"The only questions we can decide are:

"(1) Assuming the act as signed by the Governor to have been constitutionally passed, had the Legislature power to pass it?

"(2) Was the act as signed by the Governor constitutionally passed?

"1. We will now consider the objections to the act in the order in which we have stated them. The act relates in all its provisions solely to the procedure to be adopted and followed in all cases where the condemnation of private property for public use is sought to be acquired, except in cases for the opening, closing, widening, or straightening of highways. It does not confer the power of condemnation; but it seeks only to regulate the exercise of that power by persons or corporations who now have, or may be hereafter invested with it. The object of the act and the scope of all its provisions is to do precisely what its title, as originally drawn, declared it was intended to do, viz., 'to regulate the procedure for the acquisition of property for public use by condemnation,' and the amendment to the title, which was wholly unnecessary, made in the Senate was not calculated to mislead any reasonable man as to the general scope of the act. In our opinion the subject-matter of the act is sufficiently described in the title to gratify the requirements of the Constitution. It is only the subject of the act that need be described in the title. There is no requirement that the means, the instrumentalities, or the procedure by which the subject of the act are to be carried into effect shall be described in the title. Davis v. State, 7 Md. 151, 61 Am. Dec. 331; Parkinson v. State, 14 Md. 184, 74 Am. Dec. 522; Baltimore City v. Flack, 104 Md. 107, 64 A. 702; Bond v. Mayor and City Council, 116 Md. 683, 82 A. 978, and other cases.

"2. The mode and manner of the exercise of the power of eminent domain is exclusively vested in the judgment and discretion of the Legislature, subject only to the provisions of section 40 of article 3 of the Constitution. The execution of the method provided for ascertaining the compensation to the owner for the property taken in a proceeding pending in court is a matter so closely associated with the administration of justice that the appointment of appraisers by the court may be said to be a judicial act. It certainly cannot be said that it is so far nonjudicial as to render the act void for that reason. None of the Maryland cases which deny the exercise of nonjudicial powers to the court has gone to the extent contended for in this case. The appointment is directed to be made in a pending case after the question of the right to condemn has been determined, and the duties which the appraisers are directed to perform involves the valuation to the owner of the land taken.

"3.

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