Gooch v. Maryland Mechanical Systems, Inc.
| Decision Date | 04 January 1990 |
| Citation | 567 A.2d 954,81 Md.App. 376 |
| Parties | , 17 Media L. Rep. 1329 John B. GOOCH v. MARYLAND MECHANICAL SYSTEMS, INC., et al. 1834 Sept. Term 1988. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Argued before GARRITY, ALPERT and POLLITT *, JJ.
Over the years, commentators, as well as the judiciary, have attempted to unravel the imbroglio of defamation law as it has developed through early English common law. As one commentator noted:
[T]he English common law of defamation slowly grew into a forest of complexities, overgrown with anomalies, inconsistencies and perverse rigidities, it became thicketed with brambled traps for innocent defendants, crisscrossed with circuitous paths and dead ends for seriously wronged plaintiffs, and enshrouded in a "fog of fictions, inferences, and presumptions." This perplexing creation of the common law was transplanted into the United States, where its complexities multiplied in the state legislatures and courts, and its inconsistencies grew multifoliate in the variety of soils provided by federalism....
....
Very little of this labyrinthine forest makes sense when examined closely, and legal writers have had few kind words for it.
Occasionally, judges have not had kind words for it either. In discussing the definitions accorded the terms defamation per se and defamation per quod, the Fourth Circuit qualified its definitions in a footnote:
even though [per se and per quod] may be what our late brother, Judge Armistead Dobie, has labeled like-worshipped Sauerhoff v. Hearst Corp., 538 F.2d 588, 590 n. 1 (4th Cir.1976).
designations: "rustic relics of ancient asininity." In like tenor was the District Judge's comments upon these juristic fetishes: "[a]nd the Merlinesque touchstones which attach to them, must be identified, whether or not their existence can be rationally justified."
The Maryland judiciary has developed its own infrastructure of defamation law which, although made less complex in recent opinions, nevertheless merits a brief discussion to enunciate the principles on which our decision is based. Thus, we take this opportunity to step back and carefully explore the current contours of the path through the legal labyrinth.
John B. Gooch, the appellant, brought suit against Maryland Mechanical Systems, Inc. ("MMS") and Frederick A. Wolf, a project manager for MMS, the appellees, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The crux of the appellant's complaint was a letter dated August 20, 1985, from Wolf to Steak & Ale Construction Company ("Steak & Ale") that allegedly contained libelous material concerning appellant's business--John G. Gooch Associates. The letter, in pertinent part, stated:
We are of the opinion that you were the victim of false information concerning the air quantities stated in a letter by John B. Gooch & Associates.
On September 9, 1988, the appellees filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, to which the appellant responded with an Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment. From an order dated December 21, 1988, granting the appellees' motion, the appellant notes a timely appeal to this court. He presents two contentions:
1. The trial court erred when it accepted argument by the appellees that the defamatory statement made by 2. The trial court erred when it granted summary judgment for the appellees despite the existence and showing of a material fact issue.
the appellees in their August 20, 1985 letter was conditionally privileged.
The appellees, in turn, filed a Motion to Dismiss the appeal based on the appellant's failure to include an untranscribed oral ruling by the trial court in the record extract on appeal. The appellees contend that this failure to preserve the record deprives this court of the basis for granting their motion for summary judgment. We shall address this issue first.
Maryland Rule 8-501(a) places the onus of preparing and filing a record extract upon the appellant. Required to be included in the record extract are "all parts of the record that are reasonably necessary for the determination of the questions presented by the appeal" including "the opinion ... of the trial court, if any." Md.Rule 8-501(c) (1989). Violation of this provision may warrant sanctions that include dismissal of the appeal. See Md.Rule 8-501(l ) (1989); see also Md.Rule 8-602(a)(8) (1989). The decision whether to dismiss an appeal for violation of these rules is within an appellate court's discretion. Skeens v. Paterno, 60 Md.App. 48, 54 n. 1, 480 A.2d 820 (1984), cert. denied, 301 Md. 639, 484 A.2d 274; Kemp-Pontiac-Cadillac v. S & M Constr., 33 Md.App. 516, 521, 365 A.2d 1021 (1976). For reasons that follow, we deny the appellees' motion to dismiss the appeal.
In support of their contention, the appellees principally rely upon this court's decision in Rogers v. Baker, 77 Md.App. 199, 549 A.2d 1153 (1988). Rogers involved an appeal from a trial court order granting a motion to dismiss. In Rogers, the appellant's record extract consisted solely of an index and docket entries from the circuit court. Although In contrast, a trial court's determination whether to grant a motion for summary judgment is more constrained:
the appellee supplemented this record with an appendix to his brief, neither a record of the hearing below nor the lower court's opinion was included. This court noted that the appellee set forth five reasons in support of his motion to dismiss, including "other and further grounds and upon such other and further authorities as may be set forth in the supporting memoranda and at a hearing upon this Motion to Dismiss." Rogers, supra, 77 Md.App. at 206, 549 A.2d 1153. In granting the appellees' motion to dismiss in Rogers, this court noted that "[t]here is nothing in the record before us to indicate which or how many of those grounds were relied upon by the trial judge." Id. In fact, a cause of action could conceivably be dismissed on dozens of different grounds, not necessarily including those articulated in a motion to dismiss
Maryland Rule 2-501 authorizes the trial court to grant summary judgment when there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the party in whose favor judgment is entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Liscombe v. Potomac Edison Co., 303 Md. 619, 621, 495 A.2d 838 (1985). On appeal:
Our job in reviewing the grant of summary judgment is identical. We must also decide whether there is a genuine dispute as to any material fact, with inferences drawn in favor of the non-moving party, and whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Brady v. Ralph Parsons Co., 308 Md. 486, 496, 520 A.2d 717 (1987). Unlike a situation where the basis of the trial court decision is unknown and the potential reasons for its decision are infinite, see Rogers, supra, or where our review of the trial court's decision is limited to determine whether it properly exercised its discretion, see Langrall, Muir & Noppinger v. Gladding, 282 Md. 397, 384 A.2d 737 (1978); Ewachiw v. Director of Finance, 70 Md.App. 58, 519 A.2d 1327 (1987), the basis of the trial court's decision to grant Although we decline to dismiss this appeal, we do note that the appellant's failure to preserve the trial court's basis for granting summary judgment puts the appellant in a more difficult position. By failing to narrow or clarify the issues for our review on appeal, we are constrained to affirm the trial court if its ruling was correct for any reason, 1 for it is well settled in Maryland that:
summary judgment, while helpful, is not critical to our review. In fact, it is not unusual for trial courts to issue an order granting summary judgment in favor of one party without articulating a basis in support of the order. Such a scenario does not prevent us from reviewing the record extract on appeal to determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists
where the record in a case adequately demonstrates that the decision of the trial court was correct, although on a ground not relied upon by the trial court and perhaps not even raised by the parties, an appellate court will affirm. In other words, the trial court's decision may be correct although for a different reason than relied on by that court.
One of the issues raised by the appellees below and argued on appeal is whether the appellees possessed a conditional privilege to write the letter that is the basis for this defamation suit. A finding of conditional privilege operates to elevate the burden on the appellant to prove the appellees' culpability from simple negligence to a reckless disregard for the truth. Jacron Sales Co. v. Sindorf, 276 Md. 580, 600, 350 A.2d 688 (1976). We need not consider this question, however, because we hold that the appellees waived the issue by failing to plead specially...
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