Wilson v. Guyton

8 Gill 213 | Md. | 1849

Dorsey, C. J.,

delivered the opinion of this court.

The doctrine of lien ia more favored now than formerly; and it is now recognised as a general principle, that wherever the party has, by his labor or skill, &c., improved the value of property placed in his possession, he has a lien upon it until paid. And liens have been implied when, from the nature of the transaction, the owner of the property is assumed as having designed to create them, or when it can be fairly inferred, from circumstances, that it was the understanding of the parties that they should exist. The existence of liens has also been sustained where they contributed to promote public policy and convenience. If any article of personal property has been lost, or strayed away, or escaped from its owner, and he offers a certain reward, payable to him who shall recover and deliver it back to his possession, it is but a just exposition of his offer, that he did not expect that he who had expended his time and money in the pursuit and recovery of the lost or escaped property, would restore it to him, but upon the payment of the proffered reward, and that as security for this, he was to remain in possession of the same until its restoration to its owner, and then the payment of the reward was to be a simultaneous act. It is no forced construction of his act, to say that he designed to be so understood by him who should become entitled to the reward. It is, consequently, a lieu created by contract. It is for the interest of property holders so to regard it- It doubles their prospect of a restoration to their property. To strangers it is every thing; for few, indeed, would spend their time and money, and incur the risks incident to bailment, but from a belief in the existence of such a lien. Public convenience, sound policy, and all the analogies of the law, lend their aid in support of such a principle. Nor are we without an express authority upon this subject. In Wentworth vs. Day, 3 Metcalf, 352, the supreme court of Massachusetts decided, “that a finder of lost property, for the restoration of which the owner has offered a reward, has a lien on the property, and may retain possession of it, if, on his offer to restore it. the owner refuses to pay the reward.”

But, in the case before us, there is no ground for the implication of such a lien from the compact'of the parties. There was no fixed or certain reward offered by the owner, to be paid on the delivery of his property. His offer was to pay a “ liberal reward.” Who was to be the arbiter of the liberality of the offered reward? It cannot be supposed that the owner, by his offer, designed to constitute the recoverer of his property the exclusive judge of the amount to be paid him as a reward. And it is equally unreasonable and unjust, to say that the owner should be such exclusive judge. In the event of a difference between them, upon the subject, the amount to be paid must be ascertained by the judgment of the appropriate judicial tribunal. This would involve the delays incident to litigation, and it would be a gross perversion of the intention of the owner to infer, from his offered reward, an agreement on his part, that he was to be kept out of the possession of his property till all the delays of litigation were exhausted. To the bailee thus in possession of property, such a lien would rarely be valuable, except as a means of oppression, and extortion; and, therefore, the law will never infer its existence either from the agreement of the parties, or in furtherance of public convenience or policy.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.