Opinion ID: 2349960
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Judge Pugh held the Caroline County court to be utterly without jurisdiction in the ejectment suit because, he avowed Code, Art. 53, § 1, vests in the Montgomery County People's Court exclusive jurisdiction to try actions brought by a landlord against a tenant holding over. Neither the court nor Tenant's counsel (who put this contention in issue before Judge Carter) has directed our attention to, nor have we found, any authority in support of this somewhat startling proposition. The statute (Art. 53, § 1) which has been in force for over a century, provides a method for repossessing property by a summary proceeding before a justice of the peace. Trotter v. Lewis, 185 Md. 528, 536, 45 A.2d 329 (1946); Darling Shops v. Balto. Center, 191 Md. 289, 297, 60 A.2d 669 (1948). In the language of the statute (§ 1) the lessor    may make a complaint    to any justice of the peace    [in the county] wherein such real estate is situate. (Emphasis supplied.) The comment of Chief Judge Allan W. Rhynhart of the People's Court of Baltimore City, in his comprehensive article on the Maryland Law of Landlord and Tenant, is of interest: However, if the landlord desires to avail himself of the summary remedy provided by Article 53, Section 1, he must give three months' written notice to the tenant before the expiration of the term. If the landlord fails to give the notice,    then being barred from the summary proceedings which are brought in the People's Court, he must proceed in an action of ejectment in a court of higher jurisdiction. Rhynhart, Notes on the Law of Landlord and Tenant, 20 Md. L. Rev. 1, 29 (1960). In Glorius v. Watkins, 203 Md. 546, 551, 102 A.2d 274 (1954), the owner of the land sought to eject the occupant by means of a bill in equity. The language of Chief Judge Sobeloff, who spoke for the Court, seems especially appropriate: So here, fundamentally the appellee's object is to recover possession of a piece of real estate. Anticipating that the appellants would interpose the contract as a defense, the appellee asserted that it was of no effect because of breaches by the appellants, and because it had been superseded by a new relationship, that of landlord and tenant instead of vendor and vendee. Yet the appellee's main purpose was precisely what an action of ejectment could gratify  recovery of possession, with the incidental aim, as in Crook v. Brown, supra, to declare the anticipated defense groundless. Stinchcomb v. Realty Mortgage Co., 171 Md. 317, 322, 188 A. 790, 792; Finglass v. George Frank Sons Co., supra, 172 Md. at 136, 190 A. at 752; Punte v. Taylor, 189 Md. 102, 111, 53 A.2d 773, 777; Diener v. Wheatley, 191 Md. 690, 698, 62 A.2d 783, 786. Maryland Rules T 40, T 41 and T 42 should dispel any lingering doubt that the landlord has a free choice to proceed against a tenant either before a justice of the peace as provided in Art. 53, § 1, or in the circuit court as provided in Rule T 40. One of the oddities in the case is the fact that Landlords, as earlier noted, did bring a summary repossession action in the People's Court but were enjoined by Judge Pugh from pressing it.