Case ID: h-mch_4/html/0006-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Hanson, Chancellor", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

COURT OF CHANCERY,
    MAY TERM, 1797.
    The State, at the Relation of Hindman et al. vs. Reed.
    The bill file;! in this case on the 11th of April, 1791, in the name of the attorney-general of the state, at the relation of William Hindman, William Perry and Gabriel Duvall, stated, that the defendant in the year 1774, being possessed of part of a tract of land called Wright’s Square, situate in Q,ueen-Anne’s county, and nearly adjacent to the Manor in the said county, on the 20th of October, 1774, (setting forth that he had discovered some vacant land adjoining to his part of the said tract) obtained a special 'Warrant out of the Lord Proprietary’s Land Office, to resurvey his part of the said tract, for the purpose of including the said vacancy. That he procured his said warrant to be executed, and caused a certificate of survey, so by him made, to be returned, to tlie land-office, bearing date the 20th of February, 1775, and called Wright’s Square Corrected„ That in the year 1666, the proprietor of the then Province, of Maryland, caused a large body of land, situate and lying on the head of the south-east branch of Chester river, to be surveyed, laid off, and erected into a manor, by the name of Talbot Manor, which survey was made, «beginning,” &c. and was supposed to contain 6000 acres of land. That at the time the said manor was thus laid off and erected, it was situate in Talbot county j but that as the counties are now established, it is situate in Queen-Anne’s county, and adjoining, or nearly adjoining, the said tract of land called Wright’s Square., That from the time the said manor was so laid off and. erected into a manor, it was held by the said Lord Proprietary, and his successors, constantly as a manor, until the return of the' said certificate of the survey so made by the said Heed, and until he obtained his patent on the said survey, and long after, until the said manor was laid off into lots, and sold by tlic state. That from the first granting of the Province of Maryland, until the present State of Maryland was established, the proprietaries of the said province were authorised so to parcel and establish manors by such surveys, and to hold the lands so laid off into manors different from the other lands in the province; and that the tracts so laid oft' into manors were from time to time demised in parcels to tenants for years or lives, but were not subject, by the rules and regulations of the land-office,.to be surveyed on any common warrants, special warrants, or warrants of resurvey, granted out of the said land-office, or to be patented to the persons making such surveys, on any certificate returned on such warrants. That the lands, or any part thereof, so located for manors, could not at any time since the establishment of the government of this state, by any laws or regulations thereof, be surveyed by virtue of any such warrant, or he patented by reason of any certificate returned on such warrants. That the said Seed did not obtain a grant upoa his said certificate until after the 1st day of June, 1783» That at April session, 1783, the said Seed applied to £he general assembly, and set forth, that by virtue of a special warrant, and also a special order from his excellency Bobert Eden, Esquire, then Governor of Maryland, directed to the surveyor of Queen-Anne’s county, 
       he had surveyed 429 acres of land called Wright’s Square Corrected, lying in the Reserve of Queen Jhme’s Manor, and had returned a certificate for the same, and had also paid the caution money thereon; which said warrant and order were issued, and the said certificate was returned before the late act of assembly respecting reserved lands; and prayed that the register of the land-office might he directed to issue a patent on the said certificate; and that the general assembly, upon the said application, did by their resolve on the 1st of June 1783, direct the register of the land-office to make out a patent on the said certificate; and that a patent did. accordingly issue to the said Seed on the said certificate, on the 2d of June, 1783.
    That by an act of assembly passed at a session of the general assembly, begun and held at the city of Anna.polis on, &c. [May 1781, c 23, s 13,] it was among other things enacted, that the said manor situate in Queen-Anne’s county, should be laid off into convenient lots by the commissioners appointed to preserve confiscated. property, and sold on the terms and in the manner direefed by the said act; and that afterwards the said commissioners by virtue of the said act of assembly, did on the 14th of January, 1782, make sale of the said manor, or such parts thereof as then remained unsold, and in particular, on the said day and year last aforesaid, and long before the said grant was made to the said Reed, and before the said Reed paid any caution or composition money on his said certificate and survey, among other parts of the said manor, the two following’ tracts, to wit: Lot No, 10, containing 277 acres, and Lot No. IS, containing 400 1,4 acres, which were purchased in the name of James Hindman, for him the said James, Clement Ilollyday, and the said William Hind-man and Gabriel Duvall; and the said William Perry was by consent admitted and received as a joint purchaser thereof; and the aforesaid James Hindman and Clement Holltjday, were released from the said purchase by-consent, and the same thereby became the property of the said relators. That sometime afterwards a certain William D. Carman was put in possession thereof, and who now is in possession of the same; and that from-the time of the said purchase the said W, Hindman, Perry and Duvall, or those claiming under them, have been in possession of the said lots, parcels of the said, manor.
    That the said Reed, by virtue of the said special warrant, and the said special order granted by Governor Eden, which only authorised him to survey and add to his said original tract a certain part of the reserves of the said manor, did fraudulently and illegally, and to the injury of the Lord Proprietary of the late Province of Maryland, include in his said survey so by him made, a part of the said manor, including a part of the said two lots, which have been so as aforesaid purchased by the said relators; and although he well knew that he had made his said survey so as to include therein a parcel of the said manor, yet he, the said Reed, fraudulently did conceal the said circumstance from the said proprietary, and falsely pretended he had only included a part of the reserves of the said manor according to the permission to him granted. That when the said Reed applied to the general assembly, he did falsely pretend and allege, that his said survey was made according to the permission by him obtained, and did fraudulently conceal that he had included within the courses of the said certificate, and in his said survey, a part of the said manor and lands which had actually been sold under and by the authority and right of the state as aforesaid to the relators^ and by the said false representations, and fraudulent suppression of the truth, did obtain the said order for a patent, and the said patent pursuant thereto.
    That the said relators afterwards discovering that the lines of the lands included within the said Seed’s patent did include a part of the said two lots by them, purchased, did in a friendly manner apply to the said Seed, and request him to suffer them peaceably to enjoy the said two lots so by them purchased, &c. hut the said Seed hath commenced an action of ejectment, in the name of his lessee, against the said Carman, who is in possession, &c. for the purpose of recovering, &c. all which actings, &c.
    
      Prayer- — That the said grant may be vacated and can-celled, so far as the same includes any part of the said manor, or that the said Seed may be compelled to release and convey to the relators, or their assigns, all his right and title to such part of the said grant as interferes with and includes the said lots purchased by the relators, or that the said Seed may be perpetually enjoined from disturbing the possession of the relators &c. and that such other relief may be granted, &c. Prayer for subpoena and injunction, &c. Which were ordered, &c.
    
      The defendant, by bis answer, reserving, &c. all benefit of exception to errors, &c. stated, that he admits he was possessed of part of “ Wright’s Square,” and that he obtained a special warrant as set forth, also that +he said warrant was executed and a certificate returned as alleged. That he believes in the year 1666, the then proprietary caused a large body of land to be surveyed and erected into a manor, by the name of Talbot Manor,” hut knows not to what particular rules of the land office the said manor was subject.
    That an application was made to the assembly, and that such resolve was made by the assembly as alleged. That he believes such an act of assembly passed in May 1781, as set forth; and he has heal’d and believes, that Clement llollyday, in the bill mentioned, and Gabriel Duvall one of the relators, were appointed two of the commissioners, and that they undertook to make sale of the said manor, or such parts thereof as then remained unsold, about the time in the bill mentioned, but cannot ascertain the quantities sold, and x’efers the relators to such proof as they may think proper to produce; but this defendant apprehends, that if such purchase was made as set forth in the bill, the same was illegal and void, being made by persons authorised to sell what they themselves bought. )
    
    That he believes if the manor is located as it was deemed formerly to ran, that the laud included in his certificate would lie clear of the same; and he conceive it would be unjust to subject pi’operty to different locat¡0RS than those which prevailed at the time it was required. He refers to his application to the general assembly for the nature thereof, and denies that he had any design to impose on the said assembly, or the former proprietary.
    He admits such ejectment was commenced, and contends, that by the resolve of the assembly, this court is precluded from taking cognizance of the matters contained in the relators bill, without that, that there is any other matter or thing, See. prays to be dismissed; &c.
    A commission issued, and testimony was taken,, and the manor and lands adjoining were laid down, and a plot returned, &c.
    
      
      
         « The surveyor of Q,ueen-Anne’s county is hereby directed to return the certificate of the within survey, with a remark of the circumstance of its'being within three miles of the manor, for further • consideration. 12th Slarch, 171 é.’s
    
   Hanson, Chancellor

"Whether or not this court may vacate a patent on the bare ground that the survey, on Which it was granted, contrary to the rules ol the land office, and the directions given by the lord proprietary to his officers, comprehended a part of the land reserved and appropriated to his peculiar use, by the name of a Manor, the chancellor is not in the present ease bound to decide. It appears to him, that the defendant having obtained a warrant of resurvey, and a special order for executing it in the reserves of the manor, did knowingly exceed the permission granted by the said order, and comprehend in his survey a considerable part of Queen Jlnne's Manor; that he was, at the time of making the said survey, and long before, apprized of what was generally deemed the true running of the third line of the said manor, which line in fact was intended to be a boundary of his original tract; that, in consequence of a misrepresentation to the general assembly, he obtained that which he could not have obtained on a fair and full statement of facts; that he obtained a patent for latid, which, agreeably to an act of the general assembly, had been sold to James Hind-man. In short, it appears that the defendant in his application to the said assembly, not only concealed facts, which, if known, would have defeated his purpose, but suggested a matter which he knew to be contrary to the truth. There can be little doubt that a similar sugges. tion and suppression would be a sufficient foundation for this court to vacate a conveyance, obtained by one private person from another; and it is inconsistent with reason and justice to suppose, 'that, because the defendant’s patent was sanctioned by an act of the legislature, his title must be clear and indefeasible, and this court is precluded from an examination of. the circumstanrcs alleged in the bill. The legislature not being constituí» ed for the investigation of facts relative to the rights of individual citizens, or litigations between them, it never can be admitted as a sound principle,« that every aliegation or matter assumed in a preamble to an act or resolve of the legislature, shall be considered as incontrovertible.” Besides, if even the legislature may be considered as a tribunal of justice competent to the examination of facts, and a tribunal too from which there is no appeal, it is certainly an universal principle that no man shall be affected or bound by the decision of a court made in a cause to which he was neither privy nor a party.

The only doubtful question in the present case is this ■ — In what manner shall the defendant’s legal title in a part of Queen Jfome’s Manor be destroyed? Is his whole, patent to be vacated? That would defeat his title in. other land which was properly comprehended m his survey. Shall lie he decreed to convey or release unto the relators who have purchased the state’s right, ail his rigid, title and interest, in lots No. 10 and 13? Against this is an objection which may b.e perceived by adverting to the defendant’s answer.

There never has been a decree of this could, and it would be highly dangerous and improper, to sanction the sale of a trustee to himself or to his own use. Shall then the patent be vacated as to part and stand good for the residue? Has a similar decree ever been passed? Would it not be dangerous and improper (even if it can be done) to vacate in part only a patent obtained by tiio suppression of truth, and the suggestion, of untruth?

Upon the whole, it appears to the chancellor most expedient to oblige the defendant to. re-convey to the state that part of the manor which is contained in his grant, and to. continue the injunction heretofore issued. By this, both the relators and the defendant will be placed In the condition in which they ought to stand, without injury to any one, and every dangerous precedent so far as may be will be avoided.. If the sale made by the commissioners as stated in the bill, be valid, the rcla-< tors will have grants of lots No 10 and IS; and if in-truth the defendant’s grant does not run into the manor, he will sustain no loss by executing the deed agreeably to the directions herein contained.

It is thereupon, this 12th day of September 1797, by *8. C. II. chancellor, and by the authority of this court, adjudged, ordered and decreed, that the injunction heretofore issued in this cause be perpetual; and that the defendant W, It. shall by a good deed by him acknowledged, and to he recorded according to law, give, grants bargain and sell, release and confirm, nnto the State of Maryland, and its assigns, all his the said Reed’s right, title, interest and estate, in and to such part of the tract °f land called “ Wright’s Square Corrected,” as is contained within the true lines of the tract or body of land called “ Queen Anne's Manor,” laid out for 6000 acres. And for as much as it appears that the defendant had very probable ground for withstanding this suit, at the relation of the attorney general, it is decreed that each party to this suit bear his own costs.”