Worthington v. Hiss

• Decision Date: 12 June 1889
• Citation: 17 A. 1026,70 Md. 172
• Parties: WORTHINGTON ET AL. v. HISS ET AL.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

17 A. 1026

70 Md. 172

WORTHINGTON ET AL. v. HISS ET AL.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 12, 1889

Appeal from circuit court of Baltimore city.

On motion for reargument. For original opinion, see 16 A. 534.

Argued before ALVEY, C.J., and MILLER, IRVING, STONE, BRYAN YELLOTT, and MCSHERRY, JJ.

I N. Steele and Julian I. Alexander, for appellants.

S Teackle Wallis, M. R. Walter, Arthur W. Machen, Sebastian Brown, and James McColgan, for appellees.

MILLER J.

When the motion for a reargument in this case was overruled no opinion was filed. This is our usual practice where all the judges who heard the case argued are clearly satisfied with the original opinion, and such was the case here. It has however, been suggested that it would be well, in order to save the parties further delay, litigation, and costs, to express briefly our opinion on a point in regard to which it is supposed there remains some doubt, and that is whether the Worthingtons and Knapps are entitled to recover, in this accounting for rents and profits, a share of the ground rents that may have been received by some of the defendants under perpetual leases. That question was fully considered when the case was decided, and, though it may not be so prominently noticed in the opinion as it might have been, it is yet clearly covered by the views therein expressed. At first we were inclined to agree with Judge DENNIS that if any of the defendants had undertaken to make such leases the plaintiffs were entitled to their proportionate share of the rents actually received thereunder, but a careful consideration of the decree of the 23d of May, 1887, and the antecedent opinions of this court, stating the principles upon which the accounting for rents and profits should be had, brought our minds to a different conclusion. We found that the decree expressly directed the auditor in stating the account to ascertain what portion of such rents and profits have been due to the use of the improvements upon the parcels of said property which have been improved since the sale under the decree of 1833, as distinguished from the portion thereof which has been due to the use of the land in its present condition, and exclude the first-mentioned portion of such rents and profits from the allowance to be made to the complainants. We said that this part of the decree simply carried into effect the previously declared purpose of this court to give full...