Cilento v. BT Credit Co., Inc.

• Decision Date: 05 January 1977
• Docket Number: Civ. No. B-76-841.
• Parties: Virginia CILENTO et al. v. B. T. CREDIT CO., INC. t/a BankAmericard of New York.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

424 F. Supp. 1

Virginia CILENTO et al. v. B. T. CREDIT CO., INC. t/a BankAmericard of New York.

Civ. No. B-76-841.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

January 5, 1977.

David S. Goldberg, Alan B. Henderson, Gary Huddles, Baltimore, Md., for plaintiffs.

Robert H. Bouse, Jr., Baltimore, Md., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BLAIR, District Judge.

Plaintiffs in this diversity action sue under Annotated Code of Maryland, Commercial Law Article §§ 14-202 and 14-203, formerly Article 83, § 167, for harassment by the defendant creditor in violation of the cited statutory provisions. Defendant has moved to dismiss the complaint as a whole and as respects the prayer for punitive damages.¹

The motion is wholly without merit regarding the complaint as a whole. It clearly states a cause of action. Code, sections cited supra.

As to punitive damages, however, the motion is meritorious. The statutory language is clear: one who violates the statute "is liable for any damages proximately caused by the violation . . .." Code, Commercial Law Art. § 14-203. Proximate cause is a term of art allowing recovery for those injuries which a tortfeasor actually causes, subject to limitations imposed by the law upon the recovery of damages deemed too remote to justify the imposition of liability therefor. Damages proximately caused are compensatory; they are intended to compensate the victim for injury actually incurred and caused by the tortfeasor.

Punitive damages are of a wholly different nature. They are imposed to punish tortious conduct considered particularly reprehensible because motivated by malice and intended (typically) to cause the ultimate harm.

The distinction is so clear between punitive and proximately caused damages that the legislative choice of the words "damages proximately caused" can mean nothing else than that the Maryland legislature must have intended to allow the recovery only of proximately caused damages to the exclusion of punitive damages. See American Security and Trust Co. v. New Amsterdam Casualty Co., 246 Md. 36, 227 A.2d 214, 216-17 (1967).

In diversity cases, this court is bound to apply the law of Maryland as it finds that law in the pronouncements of the state's highest court and the statutory enactments of the state legislature, giving due but not conclusive regard to the opinions of lower state courts. Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 465, 87 S.Ct. 1776, 18 L.Ed.2d 886 (1967); C. Wright, Federal Courts § 58 at 269-70 (1976). The only elucidation by the state courts on the present...