148 A. 128 | Md. | 1930
By this suit in ejectment the appellants dispute the validity of condemnation proceedings under which certain land owned by them was acquired by the City of Baltimore for street widening purposes. The condemnation was conducted under the provisions of chapter 32 of the Acts of 1912, which authorized the Mayor and City Council, by ordinance, to direct the commissioners for opening streets, after giving the notice required by law, to value the damages and benefits resulting to the owners from the acquisition of land for street improvements, subject to the right of the city or the owners to appeal from the valuation of the commissioners to the Baltimore City Court and to have the issue determined by a jury. In thus providing for a jury trial on appeal, the act satisfied the mandate of section 40 of article 3 of the Maryland Constitution, that: "The General Assembly shall enact no law authorizing private property to be taken for public use, without just compensation as agreed upon between the parties, or awarded by a jury, being first paid or tendered to the party entitled to such compensation." Stewart v. Baltimore,
By chapter 150 of the Acts of 1914, entitled "An Act to carry out the provisions of the amendment adding section 40A to article 3 of the Constitution," it was provided that "whenever the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore shall hereafter provide by ordinance for the laying out, opening, extending, widening or straightening of any street, square, lane or alley, such ordinance may provide that the commissioners for opening streets shall proceed to acquire the property necessary, in accordance with section 172, and following, of the City Charter, or said ordinance may provide that the property necessary to be acquired for such laying out, opening, extending, widening or straightening, may be acquired by proceedings in the Baltimore City Court under article 33A of the Code of Public General Laws." The procedure directed by the City Charter sections mentioned in the Acts of 1914 was that pursued in the condemnation of the appellants' land. While article 33A of the Code, as originally enacted by chapter 117 of the Acts of 1912, provided for valuations by appraisers appointed by a court of law and for the right of jury trial on exceptions to their award, article 33A, in its present form, as enacted by chapter 463 of the Acts of 1914, omits the provision for an initial valuation by appraisers and directs the ascertainment and award of damages to be made in court by a jury there empaneled. But it was provided by article 33A, in both its original and amended forms, that nothing therein contained should "apply to or change the present law or procedure for the opening, closing, widening or straightening of highways."
It thus appears that the condemnation in question, involving a preliminary valuation by the commissioners for opening streets, was in pursuance of one of the alternative methods which the provisions of chapter 150 of the Acts of 1914, then in force, purported to authorize. The inquiry is whether the Legislature could validly confer authority upon *49 the city to proceed in condemnation cases otherwise than in accordance with the method of initial appraisement mentioned in section 40A of article 3 of the Constitution. A negative answer to that question is invoked by the appellants on the theory that the clause in the Constitution, empowering the Legislature to provide for valuations, in Baltimore City, by appraisers appointed by a court of record, should be construed as mandatory and exclusive.
It was the apparent purpose of the constitutional amendment under consideration to enable the State or the municipality, after a valuation by judicially appointed appraisers, to use the condemned property in Baltimore City pending a jury trial, upon paying the amount of the valuation into court and securing the payment of any further sum which a jury might award. The procedure adopted by the city in this instance, under statutes enacted before and after the ratification of the amendment, does not admit of any appropriation of the condemned land prior to a jury's review of the preliminary award or its acceptance by the owners. The right of a jury trial upon the issue of "just compensation" to the owner was already secured by the Constitution and was not affected by the amendment. In view of the pre-existing constitutional and statutory provisions relating to condemnations, we are of the opinion that the amended clause, directed to the particular purpose of permitting the anticipatory use of the condemned property under specific conditions, should not be interpreted as excluding the other method of procedure, which was in valid use when the amendment was submitted and which the Legislature subsequently sanctioned. During the period of sixteen years since the amendment was ratified, this court has reviewed a number of cases in which property was condemned in Baltimore City under the proceeding provided by the City Charter, requiring an original valuation by the commissioners for opening streets. In none of those cases was there any question as to the constitutionality of that procedure or of the statute by which it is authorized. Baltimore v. Johnson,
The judgment on demurrer, for the defendant, will be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed, with costs. *51
