Handy v. Maddox

Citations

• 85 Md. 547
• 37 A. 222
• 1897 Md. LEXIS 70

Syllabus

<p>Holidays — February 22 not a Dies Non — Oyster Lots — Locations— Notice to Riparian Owners.</p> <p>The twenty-second of February is a legal holiday, under Code, Art. 13, sec. 9, as to the payment of bills and notes, etc., but in other respects it is a voluntary holiday. It is not a dies nonjuridicus, and legal acts may be done on that day.</p> <p>The Act of 1894, chap. 380, sec. 46, provides that any citizen of the State may locate and appropriate in certain of the waters of the State one lot of five acres for the purpose of planting oysters, provided thirty days notice of the location shall be given to the owner or occupant of land bordering on the waters proposed to be located, so that he may have priority of claim if he chooses to exercise the right. Defendants located lots in a stream at a point, where the nearest shore was vacant and unoccupied land, and posted notices of their intention to locate for thirty days on that shore. Plaintiff, a riparian owner, but one whose land was not nearest to the lots subsequently made the same locations. Held, that it was only necessary for the defendants to give notice of the proposed location to the nearest riparian owner, without regard to the channel, and not to all the owners; that if the nearest land was without an owner then no notice was necessary; that if there was an owner thereof, but the land was vacant and unoccupied, then the posting of notices thereon was sufficient; that the defendants’ locations were made in conformity with statute, and being prior in point of time to those of the plaintiff are valid.</p>