86 Md. 153 | Md. | 1897
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appeal in this case is from a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City perpetually enjoining and restraining the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore from tearing down and removing the dwelling house and other buildings of the appellee. The house and buildings are situated, it is claimed, on the bed of Chestnut avenue, which the appellant insists was dedicated to the public in 1874 whilst the locality formed part of Baltimore County and before it was brought within the limits of the city by the Act of 1888, ch. 98. A considerable tract of land belonging to the Chesapeake Mutual Land and Building Association was in 1874 or thereabouts decreed to be sold at the suit of creditors of the association, and receivers were appointed to make the sale. They had an extensive plat prepared upon which streets and avenues were drawn or projected and named, and this plat was filed in the equity case in Baltimore City along with the report of sales. The land was suburban property lying in one body beyond the limits of the city without any streets, lanes or avenues actually laid out through or upon it. Adjoining this tract on the east was other arable land owned by other persons. Chestnut avenue appears from the plat to be a short cul de sac running at right angles from what is called Tenth street, eastwardly until it reaches
There is no pretence that Baltimore County or the city* of Baltimore ever acquired title to Chestnut avenue by condemnation proceedings or by purchase. If the city owns the bed of this avenue at all, it owns it by virtue of a dedication made in 1874 to Baltimore County by the receivers who sold the building association’s property whilst that property was still within the limits of Baltimore County. If a dedication was really made in 1874 it was not a dedication to Baltimore City, and if there was no acceptance by the Baltimore County authorities and if before the annexation of the territory to Baltimore City the dedication was revoked or the dedicated street was actually abandoned and adverse private rights intervened, then the subsequent extension of the city’s limits beyond this particular locality gave to the city no right to assert an ownership by the antecedent dedication. It is not even suggested that the Baltimore County authorities ever accepted the alleged dedication so as to fix the right of.the public in this avenue; and it is difficult to see why there should have been an acceptance of a dedication when the thing dedicated was a mere cut de sac. Assuming, though it is by no means conceded, that this plat filed in an equity case in Baltimore City worked, under the circumstances stated, a dedication of public streets which would have been situated in Baltimore County had they been opened prior to 1888 (Lippincott et al. v. Harvey, 72 Md. 572); still so long as the jurisdiction of the county authorities extended over the property there is not only not the slightest intimation that there was an acceptance of the dedication but all the surroundings strongly indicate a refusal to accept. It is perfectly well settled in this State that a mere dedication is not, of itself, sufficient to establish a highway which the local authorities are bound to deal with as a thoroughfare. The owner of land cannot by merely making
It is perfectly true as decided in Frick's case, 82 Md. 83, that a dedication may be complete without acceptance, and that in the absence of any condition there need be no user within a particular period; but however complete the dedication may be as against the party making it, the road or street so dedicated does not become a public thoroughfare over which the public authorities may exert ownership or control, or which they can be compelled to keep in repair until they have seen fit to accept it. Nor will mere lapse
Satisfied as we are by the record that the City Commissioner’s contemplated proceedings were utterly unlawful and without a shadow of justification, we shall affirm the decree-appealed from.
Decree affirmed with costs above and below.