1666 PLEADINGS, PRACTICE AND PEOCESS AT LAW. [ART. 75

Ejectment.

1904, art. 75. sec. 71. 1888, art. 75, sec. 69. 1870, ch. 420. 1872, ch. 346,
sec. 46. sub-sec. 1. 1888, ch. 547.

71. The action of ejectment shall be commenced by filing a declara-
tion in which the real claimant shall be named as plaintiff and the
tenant in possession or the party claiming adversely to the plaintiff shall
be defendant; it shall be sufficient to state in the declaration that the
plaintiff was in possession of the land or premises described in the dec-
laration and that the defendant ejected him therefrom and retains posses-
sion thereof and the amount of damages claimed by the plaintiff; a
copy of the declaration, with a writ of summons, as in other cases,
addressed to the defendant, shall be served on each of the defendants, or
if they cannot be found, upon the person or persons in actual possession
of the land described in the declaration, and if there be no person in
possession of the premises, or if the same be unimproved vacant prop-
erty, a copy of the declaration and summons shall be conspicuously
posted and set up upon the premises and notice of the object of the suit
and of the substance of the declaration shall be published as the court
shall direct, giving notice to the said defendants to appear to and defend
the said action by a day to be named by the court not less than twenty
days from the first publication of said notice; to this declaration the
defendant or any other person, with leave of the court, may appear and
plead not guilty to the action, which plea shall be held a confession of
the possession and ejectment, and shall only put in issue the title to the
premises and right of possession and the amount of damages claimed
by the plaintiff, but any defendant may refuse to appear or file a dis-
claimer of title to the land or any part thereof, in which case the plain-
tiff shall recover judgment against the defendant so disclaiming or refus-
ing to defend for the land or so much thereof as shall not be defended,
but the costs shall be subject to the discretion of the court, and the
trial shall then proceed against the party making the defense under the
rules and practice of the court as the same existed prior to the year
eighteen hundred and seventy, except so far as the same are changed by
this article, and the plaintiff shall also recover as damages in this
action the mesne profits and damages sustained by him and caused by
the ejectment and detention of the premises up to the time of the deter-
mination of the case.

Under this section the action of ejectment is resolved into a simple inquiry
Into the validity of the plaintiff's claim to the possession of the land, and the
judgment is conclusive. Changes in the law of ejectment made by this
section. Brooke v. Gregg, 89 Md. 236.

Tinder the act of 1872. ch. 346, the plaintiff in ejectment may recover

mesne profits and damages for the ejectment and detention of the premises,

as well as the land Itself. As respects rents and profits, ejectment affords

as ample relief as could be obtained In equity. Hecht v. Colquhoun, 57 Md.

567. And as to mesne profits, see Johnson v. Hines, 61 Md. 132.

While sections 71 to 85 relating to ejectment speak uniformly of land only
as recoverable in ejectment, that action will lie for any estate or interest in
land, such as an upper room in a building, a pew in a church, a coal mine,
etc. Ejectment, however, will not lie for an incorporeal right, or an interest
in land created by license. Nicolai v. Baltimore, 100 Md. 585.