Weems v. Calvert County

• Decision Date: 16 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 97, September Term, 2006.,97, September Term, 2006.
• Citation: 397 Md. 606,919 A.2d 77
• Parties: Thomas I. WEEMS, Jr., et al. v. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF CALVERT COUNTY.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

919 A.2d 77

397 Md. 606

Thomas I. WEEMS, Jr., et al. v. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF CALVERT COUNTY.

No. 97, September Term, 2006.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

March 16, 2007.

L. Teri Spradlin-Dahn, Annapolis, for appellants.

Emanuel Demedis, County Atty., for appellee.

Argued before RAKER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, LAWRENCE F. RODOWSKY, (Retired, specially assigned) and ALAN M. WILNER, (Retired, specially assigned), JJ.

CATHELL, J.

Thomas I. Weems, Jr., M. Linda Weems, George J. Weems, Jr., Thomas Loch Weems, Courtney Weems-Looman, Marsha Wall Taylor, and Fred Taylor, Jr., appellants, (sometimes referred to as Weems) filed a declaratory judgment action in the Circuit Court for Calvert County against the County Commissioners of Calvert County, appellees, with respect to disputes arising out of land located in that County. They sought a declaration as to the westerly terminus of a public easement, a declaration as to the ownership of an area known as Leitch's Wharf, and a declaration that § 15-201 of the Calvert County Code — as it pertains to the property known as Leitch's Wharf — is unconstitutional in that the statute constitutes a taking of the Weems' property without just compensation.

Thus, began the litigation odyssey upon which the parties are embarked. After a decision they deemed adverse to their interests, the Weems appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. There they raised the following issues:

"I. Whether the trial court erred in finding the easement granted to the County in the 1949 deed was ambiguous and that the location of the easement extends to the present day barricade where no competent evidence was presented to show the easement extends past the turnaround described by appellants' witness who had both personal knowledge and expertise in property law, and where his testimony was consistent with a surveyor's letter and photograph entered into evidence.

"II. Whether the trial court erred when it denied appellants' motion to alter or amend judgment and/or for a new trial where appellants attached letters from the sheriff's office and office of the State's Attorney for Calvert County indicating trespassers, when confronted by a Deputy, presented a copy of § 15-201 of the County Code to justify their use of Leitch's Wharf and the State's Attorney opined that the law is unconstitutional but that his office does not have the power to make a constitutional determination for that conclusion rests with the judiciary.

"III. Whether the trial court erred when it granted only partial summary judgment to plaintiff/appellants where appellee's opposition to summary judgment contained affidavits from two road workers that did not address the easements and were unresponsive to appellants' affidavits, where the workers had no personal knowledge of the legal status of the road, the deeds or the easement.

"IV. Whether the trial court erred as a matter of law when it dismissed appellants' request for a declaratory judgment on the constitutionality of § 15-201 of the Calvert County Code.

"Appellants ask this Court in the interest of time and justice to determine the constitutionality of § 15-201 of the Calvert County Code — Where it is undisputed the County easement does not extend to Leitch's Wharf; Leitch's Wharf is specifically named in the local code; the Attorney General's office indicated it would not participate in the action; appellants' property is still subject to trespass; and without a ruling on the constitutionality of the code, law enforcement cannot effectively respond to the public's unlawful use of appellants' property and the State's Attorney's office cannot prosecute offenders for criminal trespass."

Initially, the Court of Special Appeals, in an unreported opinion, found the language of the easement at issue to be ambiguous:

"Appellants' next contention contains two parts. First, appellants claim that the trial court erred in finding that the 1949 Deed was ambiguous. Second, they complain that the court erred in ruling that the easement `extends to the present day barricade. . . .', because there was `no competent evidence' that showed that the easement extends past the turn around [sic]. . . . We shall resolve the first point, but we are unable to resolve the second."

In concluding that the easement was indeed ambiguous, the intermediate appellate court further found that the testimony at the trial, by the nature in which it was given and the failure of trial counsel to clarify the issues by connecting the testimony to the exhibits in the record, did not contain a sufficient description of the easement, as presented in that record, to resolve the language it considered ambiguous. Accordingly, the intermediate appellate court found it necessary to remand the case for further proceedings. Furthermore, because of its determination regarding the easement, the court did not resolve any of the other issues. Rather, the court chose to "neither affirm nor reverse the [trial] court's determination as to the location of the easement" and stated that, "[i]nstead, we shall remand for further proceedings. . . . Given our resolution of the case, we also decline to reach the constitutionality claim in Count III, which the [trial] court below did not address based on a finding of mootness."

After the remand hearing, appellants again appealed. On our own motion we issued a writ of certiorari on December 11, 2006, to the Court of Special Appeals prior to any further proceedings in that court. Weems v. Calvert County, 396 Md. 11, 912 A.2d 647 (2006).

In this appeal appellants present two questions:

"I. Whether the trial court erred in arbitrarily disregarding appellants' expert's opinion and thereafter finding that the westerly terminal of the easement granted in the 1949 Deed, was located within Appellant Weems' property[?]

II. Whether the trial court erred when it did not find § 15-201 of the Calvert County Code unconstitutional as applied to appellants' property at Leitch's Wharf[?]"

In reaching our determination, it is necessary to review the two key documents that are in dispute: (1) the easement at issue and (2) § 15-201 of the Calvert County Code.

The language of the easement that creates the present controversy is found in a Deed granting easements from numerous parties to the "County Commissioners" of Calvert County. The controversial language provides:

"2. The remaining of the above mentioned parties of the first part do hereby grant a parcel or strip of ground beginning for the same at the intersection of the present County road, and the land of Thomas I. Weems and Clifton Smith, and running in a westerly direction adjacent to and through the lands of the above mentioned parties of the first part, and running with the center of the said present county road, said 30 foot strip lying 15 feet on each side of the center line thereof, and having for its westerly terminal the lands of the grantor, Lydia Leitch." [Emphasis added.]

Section 15-201 of the Calvert County Code provides in relevant part:

"Subtitle 2

Access to Wharves and Landings

§ 15-201. Established. [Code 1981, § 15-101, 1985, ch. 715, § 2]

(a) The public shall have an easement or right-of-way over any roads or ways in Calvert County leading to . . . Leitch's Wharf. . . .

(b) The purpose of this easement or right-of-way is solely for access to the wharves and landings and enjoyment of the wharves and landings by the public."

A. The Language of the Easement

The only language of the easement that is in controversy in this case is the last phrase: "having for its westerly terminal the lands of the grantor, Lydia Leitch." That language simply is not ambiguous. While there may be some confusion as to who was a "party of the first part" at any given place in the granting document, the easement being granted had its westerly boundary clearly fixed. Therefore, as relevant to the present controversy, it makes no difference who was who. The easement ends at the easement's westerly terminus, i.e., where it first touches the property then owned by Lydia Leitch. All of the evidence is consistent that the turnabout as shown on the various photographs and plats marks the point where the right-of-way first touched Lydia Leitch's land. None of the parties seriously contests that point. Accordingly, that is where the easement ends.¹ The term "westerly" as used in the deed of easement does not refer to the westerly boundary of the Leitch property, it refers to the westerly boundary of the easement. The "lands of Lydia Leitch" was, in essence, a "call" — it defined the western end point of the easement, i.e., the western boundary, which is the easement's terminus.

A "call" is a term used in describing the boundaries of property. Black's Law Dictionary 217 (8th ed.2004), defines a "call" as "5. A landmark designating a property boundary."² In a case involving a dispute as to whether the underlying title of certain grantees carried to the middle of a public way, we explained the nature of "calls." We said in Hunt v. Brown, 75 Md. 481, 483, 23 A. 1029, 1030 (1892):

"And, whatever may be the rule elsewhere, it is well settled in this State that a grant of land by metes and bounds and courses and distances, with calls for visible boundaries on the side of a highway; for instance a call for a stone planted in the south side of the road, and running thence, by the south side of the road to another stone, these calls and boundaries will be construed as defining the limits of the property thereby conveyed; and the grantee under such a grant will not take the fee to the middle of the road." (Emphasis added.)

See Gump v. Sibley, 79 Md. 165, 28 A. 977 (1894). We noted in Crook v. Pitcher, 61 Md. 510 (1884), that we were faced with a claim that the description of a private way was ambiguous. The relevant language of the instrument provided ". . . from said `land, over a road adjoining the same, and running to the highway which...