Baltimore v. Chase

• Decision Date: 27 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. 77,77
• Citation: 360 Md. 121,756 A.2d 987
• Parties: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE, et al. v. Sharon E. CHASE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Carlean Burley, et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

756 A.2d 987

360 Md. 121

MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE, et al. v. Sharon E. CHASE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Carlean Burley, et al.

No. 77, Sept. Term, 1999.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 27, 2000.

Reconsideration Denied August 21, 2000.

Timothy L. Mullin, Jr. (Edward W. Brady, Alicia C. Reynolds, Miles & Stockbridge, P.C., on brief), Baltimore, for petitioners.

John Amato, IV (Goodman, Meagher & Enoch, LLP, on brief), Baltimore, for respondents.

Thomas A. Woodley, Kurt T. Rumsfeld, Manar S. Morales, Mulholland & Hickey, Washington, DC, on brief of Amici Curiae International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO, and other named organizations on behalf of Appellants.

Joel A. Smith, Linda Cortez, Kahn, Smith & Collins, P.A., Baltimore (counsel for Amici Curiae, Maryland State & District of Columbia Professional Firefighters, AFL-CIO, CLE, et al.), on briefs on behalf of Amici Curiae, Maryland State and District of Columbia Professional Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO-CLC; Baltimore City Fire Fighters, Local 734; Baltimore City Fire Officers, Local 964; Baltimore County Professional Fire Fighters Ass'n, Local 1311; Anne Arundel County Professional Fire Fighters, Local 1563; Hagerstown Professional Fire Fighters, Local 1605; Prince George's County Fire Fighters, Local 1619; Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters, Local 1644; Cumberland Fire Fighters, Local 1715; BWI Airport Fire Fighters, Local 1742; Annapolis Professional Fire Fighters, Local 1926; Howard County Professional Fire Fighters, Local 2000 and Career Firefighters Ass'n of Frederick County, Local 3666.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL and ROBERT L. KARWACKI, (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

BELL, Chief Judge.

The issue that we resolve in this opinion is the applicability of Maryland Code (1973, 1998 Repl.Vol., 1999 Cum. Supp.) § 5-604(a),¹ which grants immunity to those within its coverage "from civil liability for any act or omission in the course of performing their duties," to a paramedic in the Baltimore City Fire Department. Consistent with the conclusion reached by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City and contrary to that of the Court of Special Appeals, see Chase v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 126 Md.App. 427, 441-44, 730 A.2d 239, 246-48 (1999), we shall hold that this statute applies to municipal fire and rescue departments and their employees, as well as to volunteer fire and rescue companies and their employees. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the intermediate appellate court.²

Kevin D. Williams, one of the petitioners, is an emergency medical technician, a paramedic, employed by the Baltimore City Fire Department. In the performance of his duties, the petitioner, along with the ambulance driver responded to a 911 call for ambulance. Upon arrival at the address from which the call was made, he met the patient, Carlean Burley, the respondents'³ decedent. After her condition had been assessed and oxygen administered, the patient was placed in the ambulance for transport to the hospital. When the patient went into cardiac arrest, the petitioner, as a part of emergency treatment, attempted to intubate her—a procedure in which a tube is put into the treachea to assist in breathing. The patient was then transported to the hospital, where she died the next day.

The respondents filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore and the petitioner Kevin Williams, alleging that Williams improperly intubated Ms. Burley by inserting the tube in her esophagus instead of her trachea. They further alleged that the error was negligence and gross negligence and that it caused her death. Following a hearing, the Circuit Court granted summary judgment in favor of the petitioners, holding, inter alia, that § 5-604 was applicable, that the conduct of petitioner Williams was not grossly negligent and, as a result, that both Williams and the City were immune from civil liability. The respondents successfully appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. That court held that § 5-604 applied only to volunteer and private fire and rescue companies and their personnel and, therefore, was inapplicable to a paramedic employed by a municipal fire department.⁴ 126 Md. App. at 442-44, 730 A.2d at 247-48.

Since this case is about the meaning and, thus, the effect, of § 5-604, it is governed by well settled canons of statutory construction. The legislative history of Senate Bill 731, which became the Fire and Rescue Act, Maryland Code (1973, 1983 Replacement Volume) § 5-309.1 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, see 1983 Laws, ch. 546, the predecessor of § 5-604 is confirmatory of the meaning discerned from the words of the statute itself. Section 5-604 has been before this Court previously for interpretation, but not on this issue.

In Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission v. Riverdale Heights Volunteer Fire Co., Inc., 308 Md. 556, 569, 520 A.2d 1319, 1326 (1987), we considered the legislative history of § 5-604, noting that it was before the General Assembly during the 1983 session and that:

"The file of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee ... reflects that the legislation was a response to Utica Mutual Insurance Co., Inc. v. Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Fire Department, Inc., 53 Md.App. 589, 455 A.2d 987 (1983). Utica Mutual was a negligence action brought by a fire insurance company, as subrogee of its insured, against a fire company for alleged negligence in failing properly to extinguish a fire which later reignited leading to a second fire. The circuit court had held that the fire company enjoyed governmental immunity but the Court of Special Appeals reversed, holding that whether a fire company enjoyed governmental immunity was a question of fact on which the fire company in Utica Mutual had failed to produce sufficient evidence. The intermediate appellate court decided Utica Mutual on February 2, 1983, and on February 3, 1983, a member of the Maryland Senate requested the Department of Legislative Reference to prepare a bill granting immunity to volunteer firefighters. As introduced the bill provided that `[a] volunteer fire company is immune from liability in the same manner as a local government agency for any act or omission in the course of performing its duties if [ ] the act or omission is not one of gross negligence....' The bill was amended in the course of passage to its present form."

Because the issue presented in that case was the retrospective application of the statute, we contented ourselves with rejecting the Fire Company's argument that its purpose was to restore the governmental immunity volunteer companies enjoyed before the Utica decision. Id. at 570, 520 A.2d at 1326-27. Thus, although we noted the statute's genesis and its metamorphosis during its trek through the legislative process, we did not address the statute's meaning, applied prospectively, and, indeed, had no need to do so.

Nevertheless, from the standpoint of statutory construction, it is important that the statute started with a narrow focus—to exempt volunteer fire companies—and ended worded much more broadly—referring simply to "a fire company or rescue company, and the personnel of a fire company or rescue company." That most emphatically supports the argument that the petitioners make, that the Legislature, by enacting the statute, intended to immunize all fire and rescue companies and their personnel and that immunization is "from civil liability for any act or omission in the course of performing their duties." In point of fact, the statute in this regard is quite clear and unambiguous. Reading the statute reveals not a bit of ambiguity as to the scope of its reach and, giving the words of the statute their ordinary meaning, as we are required to do, see Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland v. Director of Finance for Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 343 Md. 567, 578, 683 A.2d 512, 517 (1996) ("we begin our inquiry with the words of the statute and, ordinarily, when the words of the statute are clear and unambiguous, according to their commonly understood meaning, we end our inquiry there also"), even less as to its clarity. The statute is rendered even clearer when it is recalled that the Legislature knows how to differentiate between voluntary fire companies and municipal fire companies and has done so clearly whenever that is what it intended. See Maryland Code (1973, 1998 Repl. Vol., 1999 Cum.Supp.) § 5-603 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article.⁵ The goal with which we approach the interpretation of a statute is to determine the intention of the Legislature in enacting it. The rules governing the conduct of that search are well settled and have been stated by this Court on many occasions. In Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland v. Director of Finance for Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 343 Md. 567, 578-79, 683 A.2d 512, 517-18 (1996), this Court said, on the subject:

"[W]e begin our analysis by reviewing the pertinent rules [of statutory construction]. Of course, the cardinal rule is to ascertain and effectuate legislative intent. Oaks v. Connors, 339 Md. 24, 35, 660 A.2d 423, 429 (1995); Montgomery County v. Buckman, 333 Md. 516, 523, 636 A.2d 448, 451 (1994); Condon v. State, 332 Md. 481, 491, 632 A.2d 753, 755 (1993). To this end, we begin our inquiry with the words of the statute and, ordinarily, when the words of the statute are clear and unambiguous, according to their commonly understood meaning, we end our inquiry there also. Oaks, supra, 339 Md. at 35, 660 A.2d at 429; Buckman, supra, 333 Md. at 523, 636 A.2d at 451; Condon, supra, 332 Md. at 491, 632 A.2d at 755; Harris v. State, 331 Md. 137, 145-46, 626 A.2d 946, 950 (1993).

"Where the statutory language is plain and unambiguous, a court may neither add nor delete language so as to `reflect an intent not evidenced in that

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