Brown v. Medical Mut. Liability Ins. Soc. of Maryland

• Decision Date: 01 September 1991
• Docket Number: No. 376,376
• Parties: Dorothy Virginia BROWN, et vir. v. MEDICAL MUTUAL LIABILITY INSURANCE SOCIETY OF MARYLAND. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 18

90 Md.App. 18

599 A.2d 1201

Dorothy Virginia BROWN, et vir. v. MEDICAL MUTUAL LIABILITY INSURANCE SOCIETY OF MARYLAND.

No. 376, Sept. Term, 1991.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 6, 1992.

Certiorari denied April 24, 1992.

Gilbert H. Robinette (Henry E. Dugan, Jr. and Robinette, Dugan & Jakubowski, P.A., on the brief), Baltimore, for appellants.

Ronald U. Shaw (Jeffrey G. Cook and Miles & Stockbridge, on the brief), Towson, for appellee.

Argued before BISHOP, WENNER and MOTZ, JJ.

MOTZ, Judge.

This case involves the determination of the date from which post-judgment interest is to be awarded when the trial court's grant of judgment notwithstanding the verdict ("j.n.o.v.") is reversed on appeal.

(i)

Appellants, Dorothy Virginia Brown and her husband, Rudolph S. Brown (collectively "the Browns") filed a medical malpractice action against Dr. Harinth S. Meda which was tried before a jury in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. ¹ On November 25, 1986, the jury awarded damages to the Browns in the amount of $600,000 against Dr. Meda; that same day the clerk entered the judgment: "11/25/86 Verdict: Judgment in favor of the plaintiff Dorothy V. Brown in the amount of $500,000 and plaintiff Rudolph S. Brown in the amount of $100,000." On January 20, 1987, the circuit court granted Dr. Meda's motion for j.n.o.v. On March 2, 1988, this court reversed the grant of j.n.o.v. and, on May 4, 1988, issued a mandate providing:

Judgment notwithstanding the verdict reversed; judgment entered for appellants [the Browns] on the verdict of the jury; appellee to pay the costs.

Brown v. Meda, 74 Md.App. 331, 346, 537 A.2d 635 (1988). Dr. Meda petitioned for certiorari which was granted. On February 7, 1990, the Court of Appeals affirmed, albeit, on somewhat different grounds. Meda v. Brown, 318 Md. 418, 569 A.2d 202 (1990).

On March 7, 1990, Dr. Meda paid the Browns the $600,000 judgment and post-judgment interest in the amount of $120,821.90. The latter amount represented post-judgment interest running from March 2, 1988, the date on which this court issued its opinion reversing the trial court's grant of j.n.o.v., to March 7, 1990, the date on which the judgment was paid.

On November 20, 1990, the Browns requested that the Circuit Court for Baltimore City issue a writ of garnishment on property of Dr. Meda's insurer, appellee Medical Mutual Liability Insurance Society of Maryland ("Medical Mutual"). The purpose of this writ was to collect additional post-judgment interest from the date of the jury verdict (and the judgment entered on that verdict), November 25, 1986, to the date of this Court's decision reversing the j.n.o.v., March 2, 1988. That amount, which is the only post-judgment interest at issue here, is stipulated to be $75,821.92. The circuit court issued the writ but ultimately granted Medical Mutual's motion to quash the writ. On appeal, the Browns raise the single claim that, as successful plaintiffs in a case in which the trial court's grant of j.n.o.v. has been reversed on appeal, they are entitled to post-judgment interest from the date of entry of the original judgment on the verdict.

We agree and so reverse.

(ii)

There is, of course, a Maryland rule specifically dealing with imposition of post-judgment interest. That rule provides in its entirety Post-judgment Interest.--A money judgment shall bear interest at the rate prescribed by law from the date of entry.

Md.Rule 2-604(b) (1991).

The question presented by this appeal is what is the "date of entry" for purpose of post-judgment interest when a jury verdict is obviated by a j.n.o.v., and that judgment is itself then reversed on appeal. Medical Mutual asserts that the "date of entry" is the date of the appellate court's opinion reversing the j.n.o.v.; the Browns maintain that it is the date of the entry of the original judgment on the verdict. ² Although there is no Maryland holding directly on point, the history of Md.Rule 2-604(b) and judicial interpretation of its predecessor, supply the basis for the answer to this question.

Rule 2-604(b) was adopted in 1984; it replaced Maryland Rule 642 which provided as follows:

A judgment by confession or by default shall be so entered as to carry interest from the time the judgment was rendered. A judgment on verdict shall be so entered as to carry interest from the date on which verdict was rendered. A judgment nisi entered by the court following a special verdict pursuant to Rule 560 (special verdict) or by the court without jury pursuant to Rule 564 (Trial by Court) shall be so entered as to carry interest from the date of entry of judgment nisi.

(emphasis supplied.) There is no suggestion in the Minutes of the Rules Committee that Rule 2-604(b) was intended to change the substantive law. Rather, those Minutes explain Section (b) [of present Rule 2-604] is adopted from current Rule 642 and MDR 642, simplified by deletion of references to judgments nisi.

Minutes of Meeting of Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of May 21-22, 1982 at p. 17. Thus, it seems clear that in the ordinary case when judgment is entered on a jury verdict, it is intended that the judgment will carry interest from the date on which the verdict is entered as a judgment, here November 25, 1986.

In Cook v. Toney, 245 Md. 42, 224 A.2d 857 (1966), the Court of Appeals construed the post-judgment interest rule, then Rule 642 set forth above, in a context relevant, but not identical, to that here. There, the case was tried four times. Cook obtained a jury verdict against Toney and Perry for $5,000 on March 29, 1960; judgment absolute was entered on April 2, 1960 against Perry. Toney moved for and obtained a new trial. The grant of the new trial was not appealed, let alone reversed on appeal. At the conclusion of the second trial the court granted a directed verdict for Toney. Then plaintiff Cook appealed; the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial. At the third trial the jury rendered a verdict for defendant Toney; plaintiff Cook was then granted a new trial. At the fourth and final trial the jury rendered a verdict for plaintiff Cook and, on September 23, 1965, judgment absolute on that verdict was entered. Toney paid Cook $5,000 but refused to pay post-judgment interest; Cook claimed she was due post-judgment interest from April 2, 1960, the day on which judgment absolute was entered against Toney's co-defendant, Perry. On appeal, the Court of Appeals held that Rule 642 did not entitle Cook to interest from that date because:

... although the amount of damages was concluded by the judgment of April 2, 1960, against the concurrent tortfeasor [Perry], Toney's obligation to pay did not attach until a verdict was rendered against him on September 20, 1965, and the judgment absolute entered on that verdict on September 23, 1965. It was this verdict of September 20, from which interest would run pursuant to the applicable provision of Maryland Rule 642 as indeed this is the first and only verdict in legal contemplation against Toney.

245 Md. at 51, 224 A.2d 857 (emphasis added) (citation omitted).

The Cook court also explained why interest could not run from the date of the original verdict of March 29, 1960 against Toney himself:

As the verdict of March 29, was completely eliminated by the granting of the new trial on April 22, 1960, that verdict against Toney obviously cannot be made the basis of a later judgment against Toney for any purpose whatever including the date from which interest would run....

245 Md. at 50, 224 A.2d 857. Medical Mutual claims that this "passage makes clear that a court's granting of a new trial eviscerates the underlying verdict and any concommittant right to post-judgment interest." Moreover, it asserts that since the Cook court "stressed" that, when the motion for new trial was granted, it "wiped out any entitlement to interest from the original verdict," the "logical correlative, is that a judgment N.O.V. which is granted would necessarily have the same effect," i.e. wipe out entitlement of interest from the original verdict.

This argument fails in light of the very next passage in the Cook opinion. In it the Cook court contrasted the situation before it, in which a verdict "was completely eliminated" by the grant of a motion for new trial which was not reversed on appeal, with a case in which the motion for new trial was not granted or was reversed on appeal:

There is no doubt that if the motion of Toney for a new trial had been overruled or if the granting of a new trial had in the limited cases in which the granting of such a motion is appealable, been reversed by this Court on appeal, the plaintiff would have been entitled to interest from March 29, 1960, the date of the original verdict against Toney.

Id. (emphasis in original). Medical Mutual vehemently asserts that this is dicta and not even persuasive dicta here, because here the j.n.o.v. was granted. This distinction deliberately ignores a portion of the above-cited passage. The Cook court stated that a successful plaintiff would be entitled to post-judgment interest from "the date of the original verdict" if a motion for new trial was overruled or reversed on appeal. Here, the j.n.o.v. was, in fact, reversed on appeal, which means that the original jury verdict must be reinstated as if it had never been eliminated by the trial court. A reversal on appeal of a j.n.o.v. is, in effect, a finding that plaintiff's original judgment always existed. Enghauser Mfg. v. Eriksson Engineering Ltd., 21 Ohio App.3d 121, 486 N.E.2d 1189, 1191-92 (1984). See also Reimers v. Frank B. Connet Lumber Co., 273 S.W.2d 348, 349 (Mo.1954); Decker v. Glasscock Trucking Service, Inc., 403 S.W.2d 275, 276 (Ky.Ct.App.1966); 45 Am.Jur.2d Interest and Usury § 106 (1969).

Moreover, as specifically provided in Rule 2-532(f)(1)(A), when reversing the j.n.o.v. we directed that judgment be entered "on the original...