County Executive of Prince George's County v. Doe

• Citation: 300 Md. 445,479 A.2d 352
• Decision Date: 01 September 1982
• Docket Number: No. 140,140
• Parties: COUNTY EXECUTIVE OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY et al. v. Jane DOE et al. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 445

300 Md. 445

479 A.2d 352

COUNTY EXECUTIVE OF PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY et al. v. Jane DOE et al.

No. 140, Sept. Term, 1982.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Aug. 20, 1984.

Michael P. DeGeorge, Associate County Atty., and by Robert B. Ostrom, County Atty., Upper Marlboro (Michael O. Connaughton, Deputy County Atty., Upper Marlboro, on brief), for appellants.

Stephen A. Friedman, Hyattsville (Smith, Joseph, Greenwald & Laake, Hyattsville, and Carla S. Rappaport, Washington, D.C., on brief), for appellees.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.

ELDRIDGE, Judge.

The issue in this case concerns the circumstances under which a Maryland court may award an attorney's fee under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 when a party, in seeking particular relief, relies both on state law, under which an award of an attorney's fee is not authorized, and on a federal statute, where an attorney's fee is recoverable under § 1988, and prevails upon the state law ground. ¹

I.

In County Exec., Prince Geo's Co. v. Doe, 291 Md. 676, 436 A.2d 459 (1981) (hereafter referred to as County Executive I ), this Court held that an executive order promulgated by the County Executive of Prince George's County, which prohibited the performance of abortions at hospitals owned or operated by the County, exceeded the County Executive's authority under the Prince George's County Charter and was therefore invalid. A brief review of the pertinent facts underlying County Executive I is in order.

Lawrence Hogan, then the County Executive of Prince George's County, issued an executive order on August 11, 1980, which prohibited the performance of abortions at all county-owned or county-operated hospitals, except those abortions necessary to save the life of the mother. ² On October 7, 1980, a bill of complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County by two licensed obstetrician-gynecologists with staff privileges at the Greater Laurel-Beltsville Hospital and by a pregnant woman referred to as Jane Doe, who desired an abortion at that hospital. Named as defendants were Hogan and Prince George's County. Shortly thereafter, a second suit was filed against the same defendants challenging the validity of the executive order. The plaintiffs in this second suit were the Executive Committee of the Medical Staff at Prince George's General Hospital and individual members of the Committee. The two suits were consolidated by order of the circuit court on November 21, 1980, and were each resolved by the same opinion and order of the circuit court.

The relief sought in the consolidated action was that the court declare the executive order null and void and enjoin the defendants from enforcing it. The attack upon the executive order was grounded upon alternate legal theories. The plaintiffs claimed that the order violated the federal constitutional right to choose an abortion, recognized in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). Consequently, according to the plaintiffs, they were entitled to relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. ³ The plaintiffs also contended that the order was not authorized by the Prince George's County Charter and that the order conflicted with or was preempted by enactments of the Maryland General Assembly.

On December 17, 1980, the circuit court declared the executive order "null and void" and enjoined its enforcement, holding that the County Executive lacked authority under the County Charter to issue the order. The defendants appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, and we issued a writ of certiorari prior to a decision by the intermediate appellate court. In an opinion by Chief Judge Murphy, this Court affirmed the declaratory judgment and injunction. After a detailed analysis of the respective powers of the County Council, the County Executive and the County Hospital Commission under the Charter of Prince George's County, we held (291 Md. at 685, 436 A.2d 459):

"Under the circumstances of this case, the executive order constitutes an unlawful encroachment upon the validly delegated authority of the Hospital Commission and the Boards of Directors and was beyond the authority of the County Executive to promulgate under the Charter; it simply cannot be reconciled with the exercise by the County Council of its power to make laws governing the operation and administration of county hospitals."

Because of our holding in County Executive I that the executive order exceeded the authority of the County Executive under the County Charter, we expressly declined to reach the federal constitutional issue which formed the basis of plaintiffs' § 1983 action. 291 Md. at 685, 436 A.2d 459.

After our affirmance in County Executive I, the plaintiffs filed a motion in the circuit court for an attorney's fee award pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. ⁴ The circuit court held that plaintiffs were entitled to an award of an attorney's fee under § 1988, and it awarded a fee in the amount of $32,175.00. The court applied a two part test in deciding to award an attorney's fee. The court first found that the plaintiffs' asserted federal constitutional cause of action in the earlier case arose from the same nucleus of operative facts as the state law cause of action upon which plaintiffs prevailed. The court further found that the federal constitutional argument was a "substantial" one.

The defendants, Prince George's County and the County Executive, took an appeal from the court's fee award, and we issued a writ of certiorari prior to any proceedings in the intermediate appellate court.

The defendants' principal contention is that the circuit court should not have awarded any attorney's fee. The defendants also argue that, if an attorney's fee award was permissible, the amount of the award in this case was "excessive and unreasonable."

In support of their position that no fee award should have been made, the defendants make two arguments. Their chief argument is that, when a plaintiff in a state court asserts a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 along with a cause of action under state law, as alternate grounds for essentially the same relief, and when the plaintiff prevails on the state law ground but there is no judicial decision on the § 1983 ground, an attorney's fee under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 should never be awarded. The defendants concede that, under these circumstances, the federal law standards under § 1988 ordinarily contemplate an attorney's fee award if the unresolved § 1983 question is "substantial" and is based on the same facts as the state law ground. ⁵ Nevertheless, relying primarily upon Maryland's "policy against awarding attorneys' fees to prevailing parties except in exceptional circumstances" (brief p. 8), the defendants assert that a Maryland court should award an attorney's fee under § 1988 only when a plaintiff prevails on the § 1983 cause of action. While acknowledging that their argument is contrary to the federal law standards under § 1988, the defendants maintain that a state court need not apply the entire federal law in this regard. Alternatively, the defendants contend that, even under the federal law test for awarding an attorney's fee in a § 1983 action, an attorney's fee award in this case was erroneous because the § 1983 "constitutional issues pleaded in this case were not 'substantial' " (brief p. 19).

II.

First, we flatly reject the defendants' argument that we should decline to follow the federal law standards with respect to an award of an attorney's fee under § 1988, when a plaintiff asserts a § 1983 ground and a state law ground for the same relief, and prevails on the latter.

The Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, contains no language relating to the jurisdiction of particular courts. Consequently, in Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 283 n. 7, 100 S.Ct. 553, 558 n. 7, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980), the Supreme Court took the position that an action under § 1983 could be brought in state courts. ⁶ Later, in Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U.S. 1, 3 n. 1, 100 S.Ct. 2502, 2503 n. 1, 65 L.Ed.2d 555 (1980), the Court reiterated that actions under § 1983 may be brought in state courts. In addition, the Thiboutot opinion rejected the argument, made by the attorneys general of several states, that the attorney's fee provision of 42 U.S.C. § 1988 did not apply in state courts. 448 U.S. at 10-11, 100 S.Ct. at 2507. The Court held that "the fee provision is part of the § 1983 remedy whether the action is brought in federal or state court." Id. at 11. As the circuit courts in Maryland generally have jurisdiction over all causes of action except to the extent the General Assembly or the Constitution limit that jurisdiction or confer it exclusively upon another tribunal, ⁷ and as the General Assembly has not attempted to exclude § 1983 actions from the jurisdiction of the circuit courts, we have taken the position that § 1983 actions may be brought in the Maryland circuit courts. DeBleecker v. Montgomery County, 292 Md. 498, 500, 511-513, 438 A.2d 1348 (1982).

It has long been settled that when an action is brought in a state court to enforce rights or claims under federal law, the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution requires that federal law and policy be applied by the state court. Maine v. Thiboutot, supra, 448 U.S. at 11, 100 S.Ct. at 2508; Martinez v. California, supra, 444 U.S. at 284, 100 S.Ct. at 558; Testa v. Katt, 330 U.S. 386, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967, 172 A.L.R. 225 (1947); Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U.S. 239, 63 S.Ct. 246, 87 L.Ed. 239 (1942); Pine Street Trading v. Farrell Lines, 278 Md. 363, 379-380, 364 A.2d 1103 (1976); Frazier v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 206 Md. 434, 448, 112 A.2d 221 (1955); Standard, Etc. v. Rukert Ter. Corp., 193 Md. 20, 24, 65 A.2d 304 (1949); Albright v. P.R.R. Co., 183 Md. 421, 426-431, 37 A.2d 870, cert. denied, 323 U.S. 735, 65 S.Ct. 72, 89 L.Ed....