Flersheim v. Mayor of Baltimore

Citations

• 85 Md. 489
• 36 A. 1098
• 1897 Md. LEXIS 44

Syllabus

<p>Dedication of Streets— Voluntary Deed of Property Described as Binding on an Unopened Street Owned by Grantor — Delay in Opening Streets — Enclosure and Private Use of Dedicated Street.</p> <p>The rule is that when a lot of ground in a city is sold and is described as bounded by streets designated as such in the conveyance, or on a map made by the city or by the owner of the property, such sale implies a covenant that the purchaser shall have the use of such streets and is a dedication of the same to the public. This rule is equally applicable when the conveyance is voluntary and by way of gift from the grantor to the grantee.</p> <p>In such case the dedication of the street to the public springs from the title conveyed to the grantee, because the grantor declares by the deed his assent to the use of the land as a street.</p> <p>Where a party who owns the land to the centre of a street, laid down on the public map as such but not yet opened by the municipal authorities, executes a voluntary deed conveying a part of the land and describes the same as binding on the side of the street, such conveyance operates as a dedication of the grantor’s part of the street to the public use, and such dedication extends to the nearest existing street.</p> <p>Delay in opening a street which has been dedicated by deed does not operate to defeat the easement thereby created, since it is not a condition of such dedication that the municipal authorities should improve the street and the public right-of-way exists before such improvement ; and it makes no difference that the entire tract of land, including the street, had been fenced in and used as a pasture for upwards of twenty years. *</p>