Eisenhardt v. Papa

• Decision Date: 15 July 1980
• Docket Number: No. 1525,1525
• Parties: James H. EISENHARDT v. Rosario J. PAPA et ux.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 375

46 Md.App. 375

416 A.2d 784

James H. EISENHARDT v. Rosario J. PAPA et ux.

No. 1525.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

July 15, 1980.

Emil Hirsch, with whom was David Freishtat, Baltimore, on brief, for appellant.

Bayard Z. Hochberg, Baltimore, for appellees.

Argued before MOYLAN, WILNER and FISHER, IRVING H., ^* JJ.

WILNER, Judge.

We are asked here to resolve a conflict among two principals and four principles. The principles, each clear and well set out in the law, concern the finality, "reviewability," and revision of judgments. They are:

FIRST: A judgment entered by a court that had no "jurisdiction" to enter it is absolutely void. Such a judgment, said the Court in Fooks' Executors v. Ghingher, 172 Md. 612, 619, 192 A. 782, 785 (1937), "may be attacked anywhere, at any time, by any person affected by it . . . ," it being but "a dead limb upon the judicial tree."

SECOND: After a judgment has become enrolled, a trial court is without authority to vacate or revise it except for fraud, mistake, or irregularity. This maxim is directly stated in Maryland Rule 625a which, the Court said in Eliason v. Comm'r of Personnel, 230 Md. 56, 59, 185 A.2d 390, 392 (1962), "embraces all of the power the courts of this State have to revise and control enrolled judgments and decrees."

THIRD: A trial court has no authority to modify a judgment after that judgment has been affirmed on appeal, for that would involve modifying the ruling of a higher court. See Buffin v. Hernandez, 44 Md.App. 247, 408 A.2d 393 (1979), and cases cited therein.

FOURTH: A trial court's refusal to vacate an unenrolled judgment, rendered on the merits, is not ordinarily appealable. Three reasons have been cited for this: (1) under Maryland Rule 625a, a trial court's revisory power prior to enrollment is purely a discretionary one that will not ordinarily be disturbed by an appellate court; (2) the proper way to test the correctness or validity of the court's action is to appeal from the judgment itself and not from a refusal to vacate it; and (3) to permit an appellant to challenge the judgment indirectly by appealing the court's refusal to vacate it would, in most cases, serve to emasculate the statutory requirement that appeals be noted within 30 days of the entry of judgment. See Gold Dust Corp. v. Zabawa, 159 Md. 664, 152 A. 500 (1930); Tilghman v. Riggs National Bank, 261 Md. 306, 274 A.2d 336 (1971); Hardy v. Metts, 282 Md. 1, 381 A.2d 683 (1978). ¹ Compare First Federated Com. Tr. v. Comm'r, 272 Md. 329, 333, 322 A.2d 539 (1974), dealing with the appealability of an order refusing to strike an enrolled decree.

We are required to consider and sort out these principles, and a few others, because of the unusual posture in which this case reaches us. This is an appeal from a refusal by the Circuit Court of Baltimore City to vacate an unenrolled amended decree (compare fourth principle), in which the record suggests that, in entering the amended decree, the court revised (in effect, annulled) a previously enrolled decree (i) in the absence of any showing of fraud, mistake, or irregularity (compare second principle) and (ii) after that decree had been affirmed by this Court on a direct appeal (compare third principle). On this basis, appellant contends that the court was without jurisdiction to enter the amended decree, that such decree is therefore absolutely void, and that it may properly be attacked on appeal from the trial court's refusal to vacate it (see first principle).

The genesis of this case was an action for specific performance filed by appellant on August 4, 1977, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. He alleged, and proved, that appellees had agreed to sell him, on an installment basis a parcel of land in Baltimore City of which he had been a lessee and on which he conducted a used car business. The bone of contention between the parties at the time concerned (1) a collateral debt owed to appellees by appellant, evidenced by two confessed judgment notes, which appeals insisted be paid before they delivered a deed to the property, and (2) appellant's claim to a share of certain insurance proceeds received by appellees by reason of fire damage to the property, which share he sought to deduct from the unpaid purchase price.

These matters came before the court in its consideration of appellant's bail for specific performance and money damages. ² After trial, the court determined that appellant was entitled to specific performance; and, on February 22, 1978, it issued a decree (1) ordering appellees to give to appellant a deed to the property upon payment of the unpaid purchase price of $20,103, (2) directing that all settlement expenses be borne by appellant, (3) ordering that taxes and other pubic charges be adjusted as of August 30, 1976, and be borne by appellant, and (4) dismissing appellant's claim for monetary losses, without providing for any apportionment of the fire insurance proceeds.

Appellees appealed from that decree, primarily on the ground that the chancellor had failed to give proper account to appellant's default under the collateral confessed judgment notes in ordering specific performance. Appellant did not cross-appeal. In an unreported per curiam Opinion filed January 19, 1979, this Court affirmed the decree (Papa, et ux. v. Eisenhardt, No. 290, Sept. Term, 1978). Our mandate (following denial of a motion for reconsideration) was issued on February 21, 1979.

On June 4, 1979, appellees filed a petition with the Circuit Court to modify the decree. They alleged, in essence, that following the mandate of this Court, they had attempted to arrange for settlement of the property in accordance with the decree of specific performance, and were ready, willing, and able at all times thereafter to conclude settlement in accordance with that decree, but that appellant refused to conclude settlement except upon extraneous and unacceptable conditions. ³ As a result, they asked the court to modify the decree by eliminating therefrom the requirement that appellees deed the property to appellant in effect, to negate entirely the order for specific performance. No claim was made (and no evidence was offered) that the decree had been entered by fraud, mistake, or irregularity. Indeed, such a claim would likely have been foreclosed by our affirmance of the decree. See Bullin v. Hernandez, supra, 44 Md.App. 247, 408 A.2d 393, and the cases cited therein.

In response to this petition by appellees, appellant filed his own petition for modification of the decree. Alleging that his claim to a share of the insurance proceeds was not foreclosed by the decree, but was agreed to by appellees, that, subsequent to the decree appellees had removed about $8,000 worth of electrical fixtures from the property, and that the underlying purchase agreement was really a land installment contract, he asked that the court modify the decree by (1) appointing an auditor to determine the proper apportionment of the insurance proceeds, (2) requiring appellees to return the fixtures or allowing a deduction for their value, (3) amending the clause requiring an adjustment of expenses as of August 30, 1976, so as to require appellees to pay the real estate taxes after that date, and (4) requiring appellees to comply with their obligations "under Title 10 of the Real Property Article" (without specifying what those obligations were or which, if any, had not been satisfied).

Upon these cross-petitions (and answers to them) the court conducted a hearing at which certain documentary evidence was admitted by stipulation. That evidence, mostly correspondence between counsel, essentially illustrates the basic disagreement between the parties noted above appellees' efforts to conclude settlement in strict accord with the decree and appellant's insistence on a credit for part of the insurance proceeds and that his wife be joined in a deed as a co-grantee. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court announced that, instead of interpreting and enforcing the decree by making clear what the obligations of the parties were under it (see Maryland Rules 681 and 685), it would grant appellees' petition for modification, striking from the decree their obligation to convey the property, and would deny appellant's cross-petition. The court pointed out that, as the matters complained of by appellant occurred prior to the decree, the court was powerless to modify it on their account; but that it was not so impotent with respect to the post-decretal matters raised in appellees' petition. An amended decree, effectuating these decisions, was entered on October 15, 1979.

A week later, counsel for appellant withdrew his appearance. On October 31, 1979, appellant filed what appears to be a professionally drawn but nonetheless pro se motion to strike the amended decree. Among a variety of alleged improprieties (lack of due process, failure to state grounds, gross injustice, fraud, conspiracy), appellant claimed:

"THE AMENDED DECREE dated October 15, 1979, is void in that this Court lacks the power and authority to enroll such amended decree in that it materially extinguishes or strikes the Decree dated February 22, 1978 in direct contravention to the mandate of the Court of Appeals in Hughes v. Beltway Homes Inc. 276 Md. 382, 347 A.2d 837 (1975). The language of Rule 625 embraces all of the power the Court has to revise and control the Decree dated February 22, 1978, Meyer v. Gyro Transp. Sys. 263 Md. 518, 282 A.2d 608 (1971). By reason of each and every paragraph herein, plaintiff's rights under the Decree dated February 22, 1978 is 'res judicata' and this Court has abused and usurped its power and authority with the entry of the AMENDED DECREE dated October 15, 1979." (Emphasis in the original.)

In the next paragraph, in the context of complaining about the court's failure to state the grounds for its decision (Maryland Rule 18b), appellant stated...