Rogers v. Portland & B. St. Ry.

• Decision Date: 14 March 1905
• Citation: 100 Me. 86,60 A. 713
• Parties: ROGERS v. PORTLAND & B. ST. RY.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

60 A. 713

100 Me. 86

ROGERS

v. PORTLAND & B. ST. RY.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 14, 1905.

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Cumberland County.

Action by James C. Rogers against the Portland & Brunswick Street Railway. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant moves for a new trial, and excepts. Motion sustained.

Argued before WISWELL, C. J., and STROUT, POWERS, PEABODY, and SPEAR, JJ.

Robert Treat Whitehouse, for plaintiff. Thompson & Wheeler, for defendant.

WISWELL, C. J. At the time of the transaction later referred to, the plaintiff was in the possession of a farm in the town of Freeport, situated between Freeport village and the town of Brunswick, the title to which came to him by devise from his father, subject to a mortgage given by the latter to the Topsham & Brunswick Twenty-Five Cents Savings Bank. On June 4, 1898, after the death of the plaintiff's father, the bank commenced foreclosure of this mortgage by publication, the first publication being on that day; and on June 4, 1899, the mortgage containing a one year foreclosure clause, it became fully foreclosed, and the right of redemption became barred. Subsequently, on March 29, 1900, the savings bank gave a lease of the premises to the plaintiff for a monthly rental. The lease contained a provision to the effect that after taxes, insurance, expenses, and interest had been deducted from the rent paid, "the balance shall be used towards payment for said premises by said lessee, if he shall desire to purchase the premises from the lessor." Thereafter the plaintiff continued in possession of the premises as tenant of the savings bank until the time hereafter referred to, and subsequently.

In the early summer of the year 1902 the defendant was building its railroad between Freeport and Brunswick. In May of that year a person connected with the construction of the road saw the plaintiff for the purpose of obtaining permission from him to take material from this farm for use in filling or in ballasting the road. This permission was finally given, but for a limited period of time only, and the plaintiff then objected to the taking of any more of this material from the premises. But on July 4, 1902, Mr. Amos F. Gerald, the general manager of the defendant, saw the plaintiff, and sought to obtain from him further permission to take this material from the farm, and agreed to be responsible, either in his own behalf or on that of the defendant, for all the earth and gravel that had been taken or that should be taken under the new permission desired. Thereupon, in consideration of this promise on the part of Gerald, the plaintiff consented that the railroad company might take such earth and gravel as was needed for their purposes, the price to be paid not being agreed upon. During the time that this material was being taken from the farm and hauled to the defendant's railroad, the plaintiff assisted, for a while, at least, in the employment of the railroad company.

At this time the plaintiff did not disclose to Gerald the fact that he was not the owner of the farm which he was occupying, or that it was owned by the savings bank, or that anybody else had any claim or interest in it; and Gerald had no knowledge of the ownership of the farm, other than appeared from the plaintiff's possession, and his conduct in assuming to contract in relation to taking and carrying away such material, upon Gerald's promise to be responsible for what the material was reasonably worth. On December 4, 1902, Gerald paid to the plaintiff the sum of $25, either in full payment for this gravel, as claimed by him, or in partial payment therefor, as claimed by the plaintiff, and as found by the jury. Later the plaintiff brought in his own name an action of assumpsit upon an account annexed to the writ to recover the balance claimed to be due him for this same quantity of gravel and earth, but when the former case came on for trial, on November 6, 1903, these facts in regard to the title became known for the first time to the plaintiff's counsel, and the action was entered neither party.

Still later, on November 13, 1903, the savings bank, the owner of the premises, made an assignment to the plaintiff of "any and all rights, claims and demands it now has or may have against the Portland & Brunswick Street Railway, * * * for the severance from the freehold and conversion by said Portland & Brunswick Street Railway, its agents or employees, * * * of any earth or gravel, stone or stone wall from the premises of the farm situated in said Freeport, now occupied by the said James C. Rogers, and owned by the said Topsham & Brunswick Twenty-Five Cent Savings Bank: and also all the right, title and interest of said Bank in and to the earth, gravel, stone and stone wall so severed and converted as aforesaid." On the same day the plaintiff entered into an agreement with the savings bank, in which he agreed, in consideration of this assignment, that all sums which might be recovered by him in any suit against the railroad company should be paid over to the savings bank, less the expense of prosecuting such suit, and that the same should be applied to the reduction of the plaintiff's indebtedness to the bank.

Thereupon, on December 2, 1903, the plaintiff commenced in his own name, as assignee of the savings bank, this action of trover to recover for the conversion of the quantity of earth and gravel taken by the railroad company. The ease was tried before a jury, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff for $127.16. The defendant brings the case here both upon exceptions and a motion for a new trial. The defendant, in its plea, set up and relied upon an equitable estoppel based upon the facts already referred to, and presented to the presiding judge certain requested instructions based upon its claim that the plaintiff was estopped from the maintenance of this suit. It may be that the requested instructions were not as full and accurate in statement as they should have been, but the whole question is presented, and perhaps may be more satisfactorily considered, upon the motion for a new trial.

The doctrine of equitable estoppel is founded upon the principles of equity and justice, and is applied so as to conclude a party who by his acts and admissions intended to influence the conduct of another, when, in good conscience and honest dealings, he ought not to be permitted to gainsay them. Formerly such estoppels were characterized by the decisions as odious, and were not favored in law; "but, as said by Walton, J., in Stubbs v. Pratt, 85 Me. 429, 27 Atl. 341, the doctrine of equitable estoppel has been very much extended within the last half century, and is now as freely applied in actions at law as in suits in equity, and it is a doctrine so well calculated to suppress fraud and oppression that we do not wish to be understood as limiting its application in the slightest degree in proper cases." "Legal estoppels exclude evidence of the truth and the equity of the particular case to support a strict rule of law on grounds of public policy. Equitable estoppels are admitted on exactly the opposite ground of promoting the equity and justice of the individual case by preventing a party from asserting his rights under a general technical rule of law, when he has so conducted himself that it would be contrary to equity and good conscience for him to allege and prove the truth." Martin v. Maine Central Railroad Company, 83 Me. 100, 21 Atl. 740, citing Horn v. Cole, 51 N. H. 287. 12 Am. Rep. 111. But it is undoubtedly true that this doctrine of equitable estoppel should be applied with great care in each case, so that a person may not be debarred from the maintenance of a suit based upon his legal rights unless the conduct relied upon as creating an estoppel has been of such a character, and has resulted in such injury to the person relying upon such conduct, that, in equity and good conscience, he should be thereby prohibited from enforcing the legal rights which he otherwise would have, nor unless in...