494 PLEADINGS, PRACTICE AND PROCESS OP LAW. [ART. 75

or damaged by fire, and such insurance company shall neglect or
refuse to pay the damages sustained by the owner thereof, such
owner may bring suit against said company and prosecute the
same in any court of competent jurisdiction as other suits are
brought and prosecuted in the several courts of this State by
having service served on such resident agent as fully as if service
had been made on the director or directors of such company;
and the judgment rendered in such case shall have the same
force and effect as other judgments rendered by the said courts
would or could have.

PRACTICE.
Powers of "Next Friend" to Compromise Suits.

1898, ch. 241.

54 A. The "next friend, " or prochein ami, who shall have
brought any suit at law for the benefit of any infant or infants,
shall have authority to compromise and settle said suit and the
cause of action; provided, that whenever such "next friend"
shall not be a parent of the infant or a person standing in loco
parentis, the consent of such parent or other person shall first
be had and obtained; and if both parents be dead and there be
no other person having the care and custody of the infant, the
authority of the orphans' court of the city or county in which
such suit has been brought shall be requisite to give validity to
the proposed compromise or settlement; but such authority shall
never be granted except upon written application therefor by
such "next friend" setting forth under oath all the facts of the
case and the reasons why such compromise or settlement is
deemed to be for the best interest of the infant. This section
shall apply to suits brought by the State of Maryland for the use
of infants as equitable plaintiffs, as well as to suits brought by
infants as plaintiffs by their "next friend. "

v^

Measure of Damages for Abstracting Minerals from Plaintiff's

Land.

1894, ch 287.

8?A. In the absence of fraud, negligence or willful trespass, the
measure of damages for the wrongful working and abstracting of
another's minerals, is the value of the minerals in their native
state, before severance, to the person from whose property they