Worthington v. Lee

• Decision Date: 26 March 1884
• Citation: 61 Md. 530
• Parties: HENRIETTA S. WORTHINGTON and Dye W. Worthington, Her Husband, Samuel Ridgely of S. N. R., and Others v. JAMES FENNER LEE and Mary Cornelia Lee, His Wife and Others.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

61 Md. 530

HENRIETTA S. WORTHINGTON and Dye W. Worthington, Her Husband, Samuel Ridgely of S. N. R., and Others v. JAMES FENNER LEE and Mary Cornelia Lee, His Wife and Others.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

March 26, 1884

Appeal from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City.

The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

The cause was argued before Alvey, C.J., Miller, Irving, and Bryan, JJ.

R F. Brent, Charles H. Stanley, and Michael A Mullin, for the appellants.

Arthur George Brown, and William M Merrick, for the appellees.

Alvey C.J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a case for specific performance of a covenant for renewal of a lease for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, and for an injunction to restrain an action of ejectment for the recovery of the premises. The relief prayed was granted by the decree of the court below, and the defendants have appealed to this court for a review.

In 1772, Mrs. Areanna French, being the owner of a certain lot or parcel of ground, situate in Baltimore Town, now city, leased the same to William Spencer, for the term of ninety-nine years. The annual rent reserved was the nominal sum of pounds sterling1, and the lease contained the usual covenants with respect to improvements, the punctual payment of the rent reserved, with right of distress, and right of re-entry and forfeiture of the term, for non-performance of the covenants on the part of the lessee and his assigns. It also contained the covenant for renewal, which is in the following form: "That the said Areanna French, her executors, administrators or assigns, shall, and will, upon the request, proper cost and charges, of the said William Spencer, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, and upon his or their paying, or tendering in payment, the sum of twenty shillings sterling money, as and in the name of a fine for renewment, at any time during the continuance of this demise, make and execute to him, the said William Spencer, his heirs, executors, and assigns, a new lease of the aforesaid demised ground and premises, for other ninety-nine years, to take effect and commence at the end of the term for which the same is hereby demised, under the same rents, and with like covenants, clauses, and agreements as are herein contained, so that this present demise may be renewable and renewed forever." It is also expressly provided, that in case of default in the payment of the rent reserved, "for the space of six months, next after any of the days or times on which the same ought to have been paid as aforesaid, the same being first demanded on the premises," it should be lawful for the lessor or her assigns, if to her or them it should seem meet, to re-enter the demised premises, or any part thereof in the name of the whole, and the same again to have, hold, re-possess and enjoy, as of her or their former estate or title; "and upon any such default as aforesaid, contrary to the true intent and meaning of these presents, these presents, and every clause, matter and thing herein contained, as from and against her, the said Areanna French, her heirs and assigns, shall immediately thereupon cease, determine, and become absolutely null and void, to all intents and purposes whatsoever."

As will be observed, the covenants and clauses of the lease were not, in all respects, drawn with technical accuracy; and in the covenant for renewal, the lessor did not covenant for herself, her heirs and assigns, but for herself, her executors, administrators or assigns. And if this were an action at law against the heirs of the lessor for a breach of that covenant, it being but a personal covenant, though running with the land, it might be a very serious question whether a recovery could be had, the heirs not being named in the covenant. Shep. Touch. 178; Platt on Covenants, 449.

But the application of the doctrine of specific performance does not depend upon any such technical distinction. While at law, contracts and covenants to sell, lease, or convey land, are considered simply as personal and executory contracts and covenants without reference to any trust or charge thereby created, yet, in the contemplation of a court of equity, from the time of the contract or covenant, the vendor or lessor, and his heirs, or assigns, except where the latter may be protected for want of notice, are regarded as trustees for the vendee or lessee, and those who may represent him. Therefore, wherever the specific execution of a contract or covenant respecting lands would have been decreed as between the original parties, it will be decreed as between all persons claiming under them in privity of estate, or of representation, or of title, unless other controlling equities have intervened. 1 Story's Eq. secs. 788-790. And this without regard to the form or technical character of the contract. 1 Story's Eq. secs. 714, 715, 791.

The allegations of the bill in this case are not sufficiently specific and definite in reference to the parties and their rights in the property involved. For while we may well understand the difficulty, under the peculiar circumstances of this case, of so framing the bill as to present with precision the nature and the exact extent of the rights of each and all of the parties who may make claim to the reversion; still, in order to obtain the relief sought, it is necessary that the allegations of the bill should fully and exactly disclose the nature and extent of the legal rights and interests of those against whom the restraining and coercive power of a court of equity is invoked. And as the bill is defective in this respect, it will have to be amended before relief can be granted, if the party be entitled to relief under the facts of the case.

It appears from the evidence that Mrs. French, the original lessor, died without issue; though it is alleged in the answer that she left a will, and that Robert R. Richardson, as her executor, received the rents that accrued under the lease for several years. Of the numerous parties made defendants, even supposing them all to be collateral heirs of the original lessor, it is more than probable that many of them are without interest, by reason of interruptions in the course of descent, by devises and other modes of disposition. The court cannot decree specific performance against parties, and enjoin legal proceedings by them, upon the mere assertion that they make some claim, whether that claim be well founded at law or not. In all cases like the present, if a court of equity interposes at all it is to restrain the assertion of the legal right, simply because there is an equity that affects the conscience of the party having such legal right. Hence it is a settled principle that to entitle the plaintiff to the aid of the court by way of injunction, to restrain proceedings at law, the substance of the ground of relief must not only be fully alleged, but the bill must show grounds upon which the action at law may be sustained; or otherwise the bill is demurrable. In other words, the bill must show a real necessity for coming to the court for the injunction. Balls v. Margrave, 3 Beav. 284; R. R. Co. v. Serrell, 2 DeG. & S. 353; Kerr on Injunctions, 16.

Assuming, however, that the parties defendants may be shown to have an interest in the subject-matter, it appears that the term or leasehold estate was acquired by Elizabeth Frisby, but how or from whom does not distinctly appear, and, perhaps, it is not now very material to inquire. She made a sub-lease in 1850 to Hugh Donnelly, and the latter afterwards assigned that sub-lease to his wife; and it was under that sub-lease that Donnelly and wife became possessed of the property, at an annual rent of $219. The residue of the original term, together with the rent reserved on the sub-lease, by mesne assignments, as we gather from the documentary evidence in the case, became vested in Mrs. Rebecca Somerville; and her executors, in 1864, under her will, sold the leasehold estate, with the rent reserved on the sub-lease, to Hugh Dooner, and conveyed the same, subject to the sub-lease, by terms appropriate to convey a reversionary fee simple estate, instead of a mere leasehold. In that deed, however, by express reference, the title is deduced from Elizabeth Frisby. And a few days thereafter, Hugh Dooner, by a like deed of a reversionary fee simple estate, conveyed all his right and estate, so by him acquired, to Mrs. Carroll, now Mrs. Lee, subject to the sub-lease to Donnelly, and she has been in the receipt of the rent reserved on that sub-lease down to the time of filing the bill in this case. The term of the original lease expired on the 1st of May, 1871, and the bill in this case was filed on the 20th of February, 1878,--a little less than seven years from the termination of the leasehold estate.

It does not appear that any rent has been paid on the original lease for fifty or sixty years preceding the expiration of the term. It is not shown, however, that there was any demand ever made, or that there was ever any re-entry attempted, for default of payment, or to forfeit the term, under the express conditions of the lease.

It is objected on the part of the defendants, that the plaintiff Mrs. Lee, is not entitled to relief by specific execution of the covenant for renewal, upon several grounds: 1st. Because she, and those under whom she...