## Facts

- A 1914 trust held a 193-acre Howard County, Maryland farm for the benefit of Letitia N. Lee.
- After Letitia’s death in February 1969, the trustee conveyed the farm to her four children as tenants in common, each holding an undivided one-fourth interest, at their request.
- On July 9, 1969, the four siblings and their spouses executed and recorded an agreement appointing one sibling as “attorney-in-fact” to grant and convey the others’ interests in the farm; the agreement named another sibling, Laura L. O’Brien, as successor agent upon the first agent’s death.
- The original agent died in December 1971, and Laura began acting as successor agent.
- In 1972, a buyer offered $550,000 for the property; proposed contracts were sent to Dawson Lee’s counsel, who twice rejected the offer and declined to counteroffer.
- Laura later executed a contract for sale at the same price, signing both individually and purportedly as Dawson’s agent.
- Dawson’s counsel promptly asserted the contract was not binding on Dawson, and Dawson sued to enjoin Laura from acting as his attorney-in-fact and from conveying his interest.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for Laura, ruling the 1969 agency was irrevocable and bound Dawson.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1969 appointment of an attorney-in-fact to convey co-tenants’ interests created an irrevocable agency as a “power coupled with an interest” or on another recognized basis.
2. Whether Dawson effectively revoked the agency as to his interest by rejecting the proposed sale and filing suit to prevent the agent from acting for him.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the summary judgment and remanded.
- The court held the agency created by the 1969 agreement was revocable and not a power coupled with an interest.
- The court held Dawson manifested withdrawal of consent and terminated the agency as to himself by rejecting the sale and suing to stop the agent from acting for him.
- Because the agency was revocable and had been revoked, the trial court erred in treating the agent’s execution of the sale contract as binding on Dawson.

## Legal Principles

- A principal may revoke an agent’s authority at will unless the authority is coupled with an interest or was conferred for valuable consideration moving from the agent to the principal, or to secure the agent’s reimbursement for liabilities or obligations assumed.
- A “power coupled with an interest” requires the agent to hold a present proprietary interest in the subject matter on which the authority is to be exercised, not merely an interest in proceeds expected from exercising the power.
- Co-ownership and a contractual designation as attorney-in-fact, without a distinct proprietary or security interest in the property held by the agent, does not make the agency irrevocable.
- A principal’s rejection of a proposed transaction and initiation of litigation to restrain the agent can constitute a manifestation of dissent sufficient to revoke the agency.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that the siblings’ recorded agreement created a revocable agency to convey interests in the jointly owned farm because the agent held no separate proprietary or security interest that would make the power irrevocable; Dawson effectively revoked the agency by rejecting the proposed sale and suing to stop the agent, requiring reversal of summary judgment that had treated the contract as binding on him.


Lee v. O’Brien, 21 Md. App. 165, 319 A.2d 614 (Ct. Spec. App. 1974)