80 Md. 247 | Md. | 1894
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On the twenty-second day of July, eighteen hundred and ninety-two, a decree was passed by the Circuit of Baltimore City for the sale of certain real estate, known as the Water’s Wharf property. The decree was passed for the purpose of dividing the proceeds of sale among heirs. On the fifth day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, the
“ I offered to make a bid, and before I offered to make it, Mr. Kirkland was crying the property, and crying $28,500, and I thought he was about to knock it down, and raised my hand, kind of motioned to him, and he cried out $29,000, and I thought that that was for my bid; he then called out to a Mr. -, I have forgotten the name, and no one answered, and then he had a consultation with the trustees, and I went up to the front of the room, and then learned that he made this bid, or cried this $29,000 on the authority of a letter that he had.” He was very much interested in‘procuring the Lister bid to be accepted. The auctioneer testified that if Rogers had made a bid on the property, he would have accepted it, and then it would have been for the trustees to say whether it was acceptable to them. But it appears that the five hundred dollars necessary for a deposit, which Rogers had provided, had been enclosed by him in the Lister letter, and was no longer in
We have given a statement of the important facts as they appear to us to be established in proof. If Lister really wished to bid for the property, he ought not to have pursued such a singular and mysterious course. He might have had some authorized representative at the sale, or he might have made himself known to the trustees or to the auctioneer. But he appears to have given himself no concern about the matter; even the deposit of five hundred dollars contained in his letter to the auctioneer, was placed there by Rogers. He has not appeared since the sale to claim any rights, nor does it appear from anything in the record that he would have been a responsible bidder. The terms of sale required (besides the deposit) one-third of the purchase money in cash and the balance in two equal installments, at six and twelve months from the day of sale, the credit payments to bear interest and to be secured to the satisfaction of the trustees, or all cash, at the option of the purchaser. ' Lister certainly would have no right to become the purchaser,’ unless he was able to comply with these terms. Most assuredly the trustees could not be required to assume that an unknown man, and one who seemed determined to remain unknown, was either able or willing to make the cash payments and give the required security. And so far as we learn from the record, they have not yet, any reason to. believe it.
Lister being out of the question, Filbert was the highest bidder. There is no foundation for the charge that the trustees did not diligently and faithfully perform their whole duty. This question may be dismissed without further remark. The allegation of gross inadequacy of price is not sustained. The opinions of the witnesses about the value of the property are not as convincing as the actual offer of money by persons prepared to pay for it. The highest offer which the trustees could obtain, after much effort, was thirty thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, and of this
Order affirmed.