JAMES P. SALMON (Retired, Specially Assigned), J. Hosea Anderson and his wife, Bernice Anderson, live at 6534 Frietchie Row, Columbia, Maryland (the "Residence"). In 2006, the Andersons decided to refinance their home. Accordingly, on October 13, 2006, Mr. Anderson signed an "Adjustable Rate Balloon Note" promising to pay the lender, Wilmington Finance, Inc. ("Wilmington"), the amount he had borrowed ($227,250.00), plus interest, in monthly installments of $1,541.87. Payments were to...
GREENE, J. In this case, we are asked to determine whether the intermediate appellate court erred in applying the doctrine of inevitable discovery sua sponte, where the State did not argue the doctrine at any point during prior proceedings. In addition, we are asked to determine whether the Circuit Court erred in failing to grant defense counsel's motion to compel disclosure of the identity of a confidential informant where the identity of the informant was material to the issue of the...
ADKINS, J. We are called upon to decide whether an official custodian of records violates Maryland's Public Information Act ("PIA") by directing an applicant to resubmit document requests to the actual custodians within individual departments of the official's agency. Appellant Robert Lamont Ireland, an inmate at the North Branch Correctional Institution ("NBCI"), submitted a request under the PIA to the office of Warden John Rowley. Upon receipt of this request, Rowley directed Ireland to...
JOHN C. ELDRIDGE (Retired, Specially Assigned), J. This is a medical malpractice action in which the plaintiff, Joyce Grimstead, was awarded $1,959,195, based on the failure of the defendant, Dr. McNeal Brockington, to correctly diagnose and treat her cancer. At the conclusion of the evidentiary portion of the trial, the judge instructed alternate jury members to attend the jury deliberations without participating. During jury deliberations, two of the original jury members were excused for...
ADKINS, J. Petitioner Ashanti Cost was convicted of reckless endangerment for an alleged stabbing attack on Michael Brown, a fellow inmate at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center ("MCAC"). During the course of investigating the incident, the State sealed Brown's cell and took several items of physical evidence into custody. Apparently, these items were later disposed of by the State, rather than being preserved as evidence for use in Cost's trial. At trial, Cost sought a jury...
EYLER, JAMES R., J. The Maryland State Board of Physicians ("appellee" or the "Board") charged Charles Y. Kim ("appellant") with willfully making three false statements about his involvement in a medical malpractice action on his 2006 medical licensure renewal application. Appellant received a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge in the Office of Administrative hearings ("ALJ"), who determined that appellant had made the false statements intentionally and willfully, and further found...
EYLER, JAMES R., J. MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. and MEMC Pasadena, Inc. (collectively referred to as "MEMC" or "appellant") appeal from a judgment entered by the Circuit Court for Frederick County, after a jury verdict awarding damages for breach of contract to BP Solar International, Inc. ("BP Solar" or "appellee"). 1 Prior to 2004, pursuant to a longstanding relationship, appellant supplied appellee with silicon powder for use in manufacturing solar panels at its Frederick, Maryland...
GREENE, J. We are asked to determine whether a jury instruction proposed by the plaintiff in a suit brought pursuant to the Federal Employers' Liability Act ("FELA"), 45 U.S.C. 51-60 (2006), was improperly denied. Michele Collins ("Petitioner" or "Collins") brought survivorship and wrongful death actions against the National Railroad Passenger Corporation ("Respondent" or "Amtrak") alleging that Amtrak's negligence caused the death of her husband and former Amtrak employee, Robert Collins ("...
HARRELL, J. The Attorney Grievance Commission ("Petitioner"), acting through Bar Counsel, filed a Petition for Disciplinary or Remedial Action against Christopher A. Palmer ("Respondent"), charging him with professional misconduct in violating various provisions of the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct ("MRPC"), the Maryland Rules, and the Business Occupations & Professions Article of the Maryland Code. Specifically, Petitioner charged that Respondent violated the following Rules of...
Opinion by HARRELL, J. This case is about the calculation of diminution credits, a topic that strikes dread into the hearts of many trial and appellate judges. 1 Fortunately, the panel of the Court of Special Appeals that decided the present case was not terrorized by it and pulled a laboring oar in fashioning a fine opinion. We follow in their wake. For many of the same reasons explained by our appellate brethren, we conclude that Petitioner, the Division of Correction ("the Division"),...
MURPHY, J. The Petitioners in the case at bar are the widows of steelworkers who were employed by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at its Sparrows Point facility ("facility"), 1 and the Respondents are corporations that supplied products containing asbestos to the facility. 2 In the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Petitioners — in their individual and representative capacities — filed complaints in which they asserted that their husbands died from lung cancer caused by exposure to the...
MURPHY, J. This case presents the issue of whether an injured employee's permanent partial disability benefits (PPD) are "capped" by the State average weekly wage (SAWW) in effect on the day when the injury occurred, or by the SAWW for the year in which the employee's PPD commence. Edy Sanchez, Petitioner, who was injured on September 22, 1998, argues that his award should be based upon the 2000 SAWW because 2000 is the year in which his right to PPD was established. After this argument was...
BATTAGLIA, J. We are asked to consider whether, in a medical malpractice action, a judgment entered after a jury trial against a negligent tort-feasor, 1 already reduced by a settlement entered into with a hospital corporation, with an attendant release, may be further diminished by requesting a "judicial determination" of negligence against three employees of the hospital, who were never joined as parties in the action. In so doing, we are faced with the following questions on certiorari,...
THIEME, J. Appellants, 1 initiated this action in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County seeking judicial review of an April 29, 2008, decision of the City of Rockville Planning Commission (the "Planning Commission"). That decision granted a use permit to and authorized appellee MHP Town Center, Inc. ("MHP") to build a 109 unit apartment complex on land located at the intersection of 254 North Washington Street and 13 Beall Avenue in Rockville, Maryland. Following a hearing, the circuit...
EYLER, DEBORAH S., J. This appeal and cross-appeal arise from an employment contract dispute between the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce ("the Chamber"), the appellee/cross-appellant, and its former executive director, Daniel J. Barufaldi, the appellant/cross-appellee. Barufaldi resigned from the Chamber in January of 2007 and thereafter brought an action in the Circuit Court for Worcester County against the Chamber and members of its Board of Directors ("the Board"). He alleged breach of...
RAYMOND G. THIEME, JR., J. (Retired, Specially Assigned). In a currently pending declaratory judgment action filed by Joppa Perring, LLC ("Joppa Perring") against appellee, Joppa Drive-Thru, Inc., d/b/a Checkers ("Checkers"), the Circuit Court for Baltimore County granted Checkers' motion for an order to compel production of documents directed at Joppa Perring and appellant Gallagher Evelius & Jones ("GEJ"), a Baltimore law firm. 1 GEJ, a non-party to the underlying declaratory judgment...
BARBERA, J. In this case, we consider an appeal from the grant of summary judgment in favor of Respondents, the Maryland Port Administration ("the MPA") and P & O Ports of Baltimore, Inc. ("P & O"). Petitioners, Betty A. Appiah and Veronica Agyarko, filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against Respondents, alleging liability for the death of Stephen Appiah, Petitioners' husband and son, respectively, after he sustained mortal injuries while working at the Seagirt Marine Terminal (...
ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION ADKINS, J. In this appeal we address how courts should determine the amount of attorneys' fees to be awarded in suits by homeowners associations against property owners to collect annual assessments in cases where recovery of fees is governed by contractual provisions in the homeowners agreement. Petitioner homeowners associations (the "Associations") appeal the amount of attorneys' fees awarded to them by the Circuit Courts for Harford and Prince George's...
GREENE, J. Larry Holmes, Sr., ("Mr. Holmes") Respondent in this case, seeks to collect permanent partial disability benefits under the Maryland Workers' Compensation Act, Md.Code (1991, 2008 Repl.Vol.) 9-101-9-1201 of the Labor and Employment Article (the "Act") 1 that would have been due to his wife, Patricia L. Holmes ("Mrs. Holmes"), had she not died of causes unrelated to the injuries she sustained in the course of her employment with Wal Mart Stores, Inc., Petitioner ("Wal Mart"). Mr....
MURPHY, J. The case at bar presents us with the question of whether Ofir and Monique Marwani, Appellants, are entitled to the return of a "non-refundable" deposit they paid to Catering By Uptown, Appellee. After the District Court of Maryland, sitting in Prince George's County, answered "no" to that question, and the Circuit Court for Prince George's County affirmed the judgment of the District Court, 1 Appellants filed a petition for writ of certiorari in which they presented this Court...
