Summary
The Maryland Court of Appeals considered whether a 1913 deed created an unambiguous restrictive covenant requiring approximately 200 acres of cemetery property to be maintained and operated as a cemetery. The court held that the covenant was unambiguous and that the respondents had not shown a sufficient nexus between changed circumstances and the covenant’s purpose to make enforcement ineffective. The court reversed the lower courts’ judgments.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the first restrictive covenant in the 1913 deed, requiring that the property be maintained and operated as a cemetery, is ambiguous.
- Whether radically changed circumstances rendered enforcement of the restrictive covenant ineffective for achieving its purpose.
Holdings
- The covenant requiring that "the said property be maintained and operated as a cemetery" is clear and unambiguous and applies to the entire approximately 200-acre property conveyed by the 1913 deed, including the Development Parcel.
- Radically changed circumstances did not render the covenant unenforceable because the changes identified by respondents did not frustrate the covenant's express purpose of preserving the entire 200-acre property for cemetery use.
Key quotations
“We determine, as a matter of law, that the covenant, as written, clearly and unambiguously “restrict[s] the use of the Development Parcel for any purpose other than a cemetery.”” (434 Md. at 62)
“We hold that the first restrictive covenant in the 1913 Deed, clearly and unambiguously, requires that all 200 acres sold to the Druid Ridge Cemetery Company be maintained and operated as a cemetery.” (434 Md. at 68)
Factual background
In 1913, receivers conveyed approximately 200 acres of Druid Ridge Cemetery property to Druid Ridge Cemetery Company subject to a covenant requiring that "the said property be maintained and operated as a cemetery." Druid Ridge later contracted to sell a 36.21-acre development parcel for construction of fifty-six semidetached residences. The surrounding area, the death-care industry, land values, and land-use regulations had changed substantially since 1913, but the Court found that those changes did not prevent the entire property from being maintained and operated as a cemetery or otherwise frustrate the covenant's purpose.
Procedural history
Petitioners filed an action in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County seeking, among other relief, a declaration that the proposed residential development violated restrictive covenants in the deed conveying the cemetery property. On May 9, 2008, the circuit court found the covenant ambiguous and held that radically changed circumstances rendered it ineffective and unenforceable. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed on September 29, 2010. The Court of Appeals granted certiorari and reversed, directing entry of judgment for petitioners.
Remand instructions
The judgment of the Court of Special Appeals was reversed, and the case was remanded to that court with directions to remand to the Circuit Court for Baltimore County for entry of judgment in favor of petitioners.