White v. Pines

• Decision Date: 06 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 2652, Sept. Term, 2005.,2652, Sept. Term, 2005.
• Citation: 173 Md. App. 13,917 A.2d 1129
• Parties: Stuart P. WHITE et al. v. The PINES COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION, Inc. et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

917 A.2d 1129

173 Md. App. 13

Stuart P. WHITE et al. v. The PINES COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION, Inc. et al.

No. 2652, Sept. Term, 2005.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

March 6, 2007.

William M. Ferris, Todd D. Lochner, Tarrant H. Lomax, Steven P. Resnick (Nevin L. Young, Lynn T. Krauser, on brief), Annapolis, for appellant.

Christopher F. Drummond, Centreville, Mary E. Gleaves, Karl Gleaves, Arnold, for appellee.

Panel DAVIS, JAMES R. EYLER and WOODWARD, JJ.

DAVIS, J.

The Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, by memorandum and order, ruled on December 28, 2005 in favor of appellees, the Pines Community Improvement Association, Inc.¹ Trial commenced on April 13 and 15 of 2005 and the trial court determined there were necessary parties unnamed in the action. The trial court, sua sponte, issued a Show Cause Order to all lot owners of The Pines on the Severn (hereinafter "The Pines") and a subsequent hearing was set to join all additional party defendants. Trial resumed December 21 and 22, 2005, at which time evidence and testimony were taken in regard to the action filed on December 8, 2003² and a cross-claim that was filed by appellees on July 8, 2005.

Following trial, the court adjudged that the Rices were not damaged by appellees nor did appellees trespass upon their land when the steps to pier one, discussed infra, were removed. Appellees' response to the motion of appellants to alter or amend judgment, filed January 19, 2006, concedes in a footnote that the trial court's Memorandum and Order did not expressly mention the Rice Triangle and offered the trial court its acquiescence for the trial court to amend its order "to reflect the Rices' adverse possession of the area covered by the studio.'" The trial court denied the motion on January 26, 2006.

The trial court found that the Pines Community Improvement Association owned, in fee simple, title to the contested property and all of the existing improvements thereon and appellants' claims of adverse possession and prescriptive easement were denied. Denied also were appellants' claims that a mortgage and subsequent deed granted them an interest in community land, piers and boathouses that differed from interests enjoyed by all residents. PCIA was granted the right, power and authority to use, control and regulate the community land and any improvement thereon including assignation of boat slips at piers and boathouses. PCIA was also granted rights power and authority to charge fees for costs associated with such regulation, including storage fees for noncompliance with assignment regulations.

Monetary judgments were recorded against the following appellants: Gill & Assocs., the Donnellys, the Garmans, the Whites, Clow, the Lyons, Johnston, and the Donahues.³

All appellants noted timely appeals to this Court, filed five separate briefs⁴ and have presented several questions for our review, which we restate as follows:

I. Are appellants entitled to ownership of Community Land and/or piers through adverse possession, an exclusive prescriptive easement, estoppel or alternatively by their predecessors extinguishing rights of common use?

II. Does the trial court's lack of factual and legal findings concerning the "Rice Triangle" require remand for further proceedings?

III. Did the trial court err in creating a new covenant eighty years after the original plats of the Pines were recorded and by awarding damages against appellants arising out of use of the piers?

IV. Is an association community landowner, which calls itself a Community Improvement Association, but does not qualify as a homeowners' association under Maryland Code Ann., Real Prop., § 11B-101, et seq.,⁵ entitled to ignore or overrule covenants and a common development scheme expressly providing that the land it now holds is subject to a right of use by lot owners?

V. When a "community lot" is burdened by a covenant and common development scheme providing for the use of the property by all adjacent property owners in a designated plat area, may a volunteer organization which acquires title to the "community lot" control use of the lot to the extent of charging fees to the adjacent property owners for the use of the burdened property, making discretionary assignments of pre-existing piers and boathouses which were built by the adjacent property owners and by requiring that all adjacent lot owners who wish to exercise the right to use such piers and boathouses become members of the voluntary organization?

VI. Did the trial court abuse its discretion by failing to consider Simmons' testimony and documentary evidence and as to its manner and timing in which it concluded trial and entered its order?

FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

"The Pines on the Severn" (hereinafter "The Pines") is a residential community of approximately 250 single family lots located in Arnold, Maryland that binds on two branches of Chase Creek, a tributary of the Severn River. The Pines was created by Leonidas G. Turner, principal of The Severn River Company and his wife, Amelia A. Turner, by recordation of two plats in 1922 and 1924, respectively, in the Land Records of Anne Arundel County. The plats depict a ring of Community Land⁶ in the proposed development such that no single lot is binding on Chase Creek.

After January 27, 1926, The Pines Company, Inc. owned all of the unsold lots in The Pines. The deed recorded in February 1926 contained the following language in regard to the land conveyed:

and all parts thereof marked Community Land or Community Lot, and all the roads, ways, streets, lanes, alleys, and paths, piers, riparian and water rights appurtenant to said Community lands, streets, roads, lanes, ways, alleys, and paths, being subject to such rights therein as granted to the owners of such lots or parts of said tract in the deeds from the said The Severn River Company heretofore executed and recorded.

Together with the rights, roads, ways, waters, water and riparian rights, streets, lanes, alleys, and paths, piers and appurtenances and advantages to the same belonging or in anywise appertaining and particularly the roads and ways leading from said property to the Baltimore and Annapolis Boulevard.

Early deeds from The Severn River Company conveyed to individual lot holders

also the use in common with others of the road extending from Chase Creek to the Baltimore and Annapolis Boulevard and also the use in common with others entitled thereto of the lots of ground designated as Community Lot on said Plat and all water and riparian rights incident thereto.

The PCIA was formed and incorporated in July of 1926 "[t]o control and care for the Community lots and beaches, the water supply, fire protection, sanitation, enforcement of restrictions, roads, police, lighting, legislation, transportation and all other matters in which the community interest as a whole is involved." Further, the certificate of incorporation allowed that the PCIA "shall have the right to acquire by purchase, lease or otherwise any land, building, property or real estate to be used for any purposes consistent with the powers as expressed in the charter of the said corporation." The corporation acknowledged that it was subject to the "General Laws of the State of Maryland." It is a voluntary membership organization that presently has a regular membership of approximately 114 lot owners and several appellants have been members and/or officers in the PCIA. The PCIA has a constitution, Bylaws and Rules and Regulations.

The membership roles have included the following appellant members⁷ Rice in 2003; Donahue 1986-2003; Simmons from 1969 to 1978, 1980, 1993, 1994, 2000-2004; Johnston 2002-03; Lyon 1990-2003; Clow 1996-97, 2000-2003; White 2002; Garman 2002; Donnelly 2001-2003; Gill 1967-71, 1973-78 and a resident of Gill & Assocs. Lot 617, Robert R. Nichols (hereinafter Nichols) 1988-89, 1995, 2000-02.

On October 12, 1926,⁸ The Pines Company executed a deed granting PCIA lot number 406 as shown on the July 15, 1922 plat. The "BEING" clause included use in common language "with others entitled thereto of the lot of ground designated as `Community Lot' on said Plat, and all water and riparian rights incident thereto." It continued, "[t]he said lot to be held by [PCIA] for the use of all owners of lots and also those who may acquire lots, as a single unit for the Pines Community purposes." The land was granted subject to covenants. The covenant language stated:

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD the said lot of ground and premises above described and mentioned, and hereby intended to be conveyed, together with the rights, privileges, appurtenances and advantages thereto belonging or appertaining, unto and to the proper use and benefit of the said Pines Community Association Incorporated, and for the title holders from The Pines Company, Incorporated, or Leondias G. Turner, [sic] their successors or assigns, in fee simple, subject, however, to the following covenants, and agreements which are hereby entered into by the [PCIA], its successors and assigns, with the said The Pines Company, Inc., as part of the consideration of this deed.

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8 — That the said grantee doth hereby covenant and agree for itself, its successors and assigns, that the land hereby conveyed, shall be liable annually for the proportionate amount of the cost of maintaining the roads, included in the area of the Pines-on-the-Severn, for the total square feet in said lots said proportionate amount not to exceed, however, the sum of Sixty-dollars ($60.00) to be paid annually on the 15th day of March, in each year, by the grantee, its successors and assigns, to the Pines Company, its successors and assigns, or to such person or body corporate, as it or they may direct.

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IT IS DISTINCTLY UNDERSTOOD AND AGREED BETWEEN the parties thereto, that all covenants and agreements above expressed, shall be held to run and bind with the land hereby conveyed, the...