Chapman v. Kamara
| Citation | 702 A.2d 977,118 Md.App. 418 |
| Decision Date | 02 December 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 642,S,642 |
| Parties | Cheryl CHAPMAN, Personal Representative of the Estate of Henry Norman Cole, II, et al. v. Marie KAMARA, Individually, etc. ept. Term., 1997. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Don C.A. Parker (Robert L. Polk and Robert J. Kniaz, on the brief), Washington, DC, for Appellees.
Argued before WENNER, EYLER and THIEME, JJ.
This appeal is but one episode in continuing litigation over a tragic automobile accident. The entire scope of the controversy is somewhat complex, but the issues before us in this appeal are relatively few and narrowly drawn. Appellants moved to vacate a judgment against them in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County (Spellbring, J.), and appellee Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) moved to intervene in order to oppose the motion to vacate. The court granted the motion to intervene and denied the (1) Whether WMATA had a justiciable interest in the friendly suit below such as permitted intervention in the action for the purpose of opposing the Motion to Vacate the Judgment?
motion to vacate. This timely appeal ensued, and the appellants raise the following issues for our review:
(2) Whether, in the absence of a justiciable interest on the part of WMATA, the judgment should have been vacated as requested by defendants and consented to by the plaintiffs?
(3) Whether, in the absence of any service upon her or notice to her of the proceedings, Renee Cole is entitled to have the judgment against her set aside?
(4) Whether the entry of appearance of an attorney on behalf of an Estate not yet in existence is valid, permitting relief [to] be [granted] against the estate?
For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm.
The case arises out of an automobile accident on 11 October 1991 in which a van carrying eight young men collided with a telephone pole. The driver of the van, Henry Norman Cole, II, was seriously injured, and he died as a result of those injuries about fourteen months later. The other seven passengers survived, some sustaining serious injuries and some incurring substantial medical bills. Two of these other seven passengers were teen-aged minors: Arouna Koroma and Russell Cole, the latter of whom is also the brother of the deceased driver, Henry Norman Cole. The van was owned by the two Coles' stepmother, Renee Cole, and she insured the van for up to $100,000 under a policy with Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO).
On 23 December 1993, the instant suit was filed. The appellants characterize the suit as a "friendly" suit, brought for the sole purpose of binding two minors to a global settlement agreement with GEICO for the monetary limits of the insurance policy. Although appellees do not seriously contest On the same day the complaint was filed, an answer was filed on behalf of both defendants, denying liability generally. Also on the same day, judgment was entered in favor of the plaintiffs pursuant to a consent order. The court awarded the following amounts, each of which was the same amount prayed for in the complaint:
Thus, Kamara received a total of $44,350, and Reverend Cole received a total of $14,250. Still on the same day, plaintiffs filed a Satisfaction of Judgment indicating the amounts had been paid in full.
The next chapter of this narrative begins on 7 October 1994, when Reverend Cole took further action in two separate legal fora. On that day, he petitioned for administration of the Estate and was appointed as personal representative. On that same day, he filed suit in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County against the (WMATA), alleging negligence in connection with the accident in which his son Henry was injured and died. The allegation is that a WMATA bus crossed the center line into young Henry Cole's lane of on-coming traffic and that The catalyst of the present dispute is WMATA's motion for summary judgment filed in the federal court suit on 29 March 1996. Although the motion and its resolution are not a part of the record, the parties are in substantial agreement that the motion raised the existence of a final judgment in the instant "friendly" suit as a bar to the suit against WMATA. The parties have not informed us of any ruling on the merits of the motion. 2 Reverend Cole thereafter resigned as personal representative of the Estate on 5 April 1996, and he was replaced in this capacity four days later by Cheryl Chapman. Chapman is Reverend Cole's attorney in the federal suit and represented him in his petition for letters of administration of the Estate. 3
Cole swerved his van to the left and off the road in an attempt to avoid a collision. Reverend Cole brought a survival action in which he sued as the personal representative of the deceased's estate and a wrongful death action in which he sued individually (as well as to the use of [702 A.2d 981] the deceased's natural mother, Nankita Boseman). WMATA removed the case to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland (Southern Division, Case Number PJM-94-3185), where the case is still on-going. In October of 1995, WMATA filed a third party complaint against Renee Cole.
Chapman, as personal representative of the Estate, and Renee Cole filed the instant motion to vacate judgment on 17 April 1996, alleging lack of personal jurisdiction due to deficient service of process. No party to the suit opposed the motion. On 3 May 1996, WMATA filed a Motion to Intervene as of right pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-214(a) and an Opposition
to the motion to vacate. The intervention motion was granted on 24 May 1996 and, after two rounds of hearings, the motion to vacate was denied on 26 February 1997.
We first make plain that we are not resolving the question that is currently before the United States District Court as to the preclusive effect of a judgment in a friendly suit brought for the sole purpose of binding a minor to a settlement agreement. While that very issue is, of course, the driving force of the instant dispute, we are limited to reviewing only the lower court's orders, which did nothing more than permit intervention by WMATA and deny the motion to vacate judgment. Any opinion we could render regarding issue preclusion would not be binding upon the District Court and would therefore be entirely advisory in nature. E.g., Hammond v. Lancaster, 194 Md. 462, 71 A.2d 474 (1950). We would not presume that the District Court has any need for advice, and, if it finds to the contrary at a later time, it may certify a question to the proper authority, the Court of Appeals.
Appellants' first claim of error is that WMATA had no "justiciable interest" sufficient to support its intervention in the suit. There are two types of intervention contemplated in the Maryland Rules of Civil Procedure: intervention as of right and permissive intervention. With regard to intervention as of right, Maryland Rule 2-214(a) states, in pertinent part:
Upon timely motion, a person shall be permitted to intervene in an action ... when the person claims an interest relating to the property or transaction that is the subject of the action, and the person is so situated that the disposition of the action may as a practical matter impair or impede the ability to protect that interest unless it is adequately represented by existing parties.
A party moving for intervention as of right must show four things:
(1) the application for intervention must be timely;
(2) the applicant must have an interest in the subject matter of the action;
(3) the disposition of the action would at least potentially impair the applicant's ability to protect its interest; and
(4) the applicant's interest must be inadequately represented by existing parties.
Pharmaceia ENI Diagnostics, Inc. v. Washington Suburban Sanitary Comm'n, 85 Md.App. 555, 566, 584 A.2d 714 (1991); Hartford Ins. Co. v. Birdsong, 69 Md.App. 615, 622, 519 A.2d 219 (1987). Appellants do not question the timeliness of appellee's application or the inadequacy of representation by existing parties. Their appeal focuses primarily on the second prong (existence of an interest in the subject matter), but it also implicates the third prong (relevance of any disposition to the claimed interest). We will accordingly address both.
We will review the instant intervention order for error. WMATA argues that we should review for abuse of discretion, on the grounds that the lower court has some discretion to grant permissive interventions. Appellants conceded the abuse of discretion standard at oral argument, but we have some lingering doubts. WMATA moved to intervene as a matter of right pursuant to Rule 2-214(a) only; there was no motion for permissive intervention under subsection (b) in the alternative. The court's order granting the motion also...
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