In re Hosein

• Court: Maryland Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: PER CURIAM.
• Citation: 484 Md. 559,300 A.3d 68
• Docket Number: Misc. No. 24 September Term, 2022
• Decision Date: 14 August 2023
• Parties: In the MATTER OF the Petition of Kern HOSEIN

484 Md. 559
300 A.3d 68

In the MATTER OF the Petition of Kern HOSEIN

Misc. No. 24 September Term, 2022

Supreme Court of Maryland. *

August 14, 2023

Argued by Kieran P. Dowdy (Schlachman, Belsky, Weiner & Davey, P.A., Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellant.

Argued by Heather R. Pensyl, Associate General Counsel (Abraham M. Schwartz, General Counsel, Fire and Police Employees’ Retirement, Baltimore, MD; James L. Shea, City Solicitor, and Michael Redmond, Director, Appellate Practice Group, Baltimore City Law Department, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for Appellee.

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, Hotten, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, JJ.

Per Curiam Opinion

484 Md. 561

During the early phases of the State of Maryland's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, former Chief Judge ¹ Mary Ellen

300 A.3d 70

Barbera issued an administrative tolling order on April 3, 2020. The order tolled deadlines related to the initiation of matters effective March 16, 2020, the date on which court clerks’ offices had closed due to the pandemic. Chief Judge Barbera later issued a revised administrative order that terminated the tolling period effective as of the date the clerks’ offices reopened on July 20, 2020. The revised order also

484 Md. 562

extended the filing deadlines to initiate matters by an additional fifteen days. This appeal concerns the scope of that additional fifteen-day extension.

Kern Hosein ("Petitioner"), a Baltimore City police officer, sustained an injury during a motor vehicle accident while responding to an emergency call. On October 6, 2018, Petitioner filed for Line-of-Duty Disability Retirement with the Fire and Police Employees’ Retirement System for the City of Baltimore ("Respondent"). The Hearing Examiner denied Petitioner's request and granted him Non-Line-of-Duty Disability Retirement. A copy of the decision was mailed to Petitioner on December 22, 2021. Petitioner filed a Petition for Judicial Review in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on January 25, 2022. ² Respondent moved to dismiss, arguing that the petition was time-barred because it was filed after the thirty-day deadline of January 21, 2022. Petitioner asserted that his filing was timely because his deadline was February 7, 2022. He reasoned that the fifteen-day extension under the administrative tolling orders applied to all matters, including his case, with filing deadlines that fell within the COVID-19 emergency period between March 16, 2020 and April 3, 2022.

The circuit court granted the motion to dismiss, concluding that the extension had applied only to deadlines that were tolled during the closure of the clerks’ offices between March 16, 2020 and July 20, 2020. Petitioner timely appealed to the Appellate Court of Maryland. ³ While the case was pending, the Appellate Court certified the following question

484 Md. 563

to this Court: "Does the 15-day extension apply to all cases whose statute of limitations and deadlines related to initiation expired between March 16, 2020, and April 3, 2022?" Pursuant to Rule 8-304(c)(3), we issued a writ of certiorari that included the entire action on February 24, 2023. We answer the certified question in the negative and hold that the fifteen-day extension applied only to cases with deadlines that were suspended during the closure of the clerks’ offices between March 16, 2020 and July 20, 2020. ⁴ We therefore affirm the circuit court's judgment.

300 A.3d 71

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

I. Underlying Factual Background.

A. The Chief Judge's administrative orders.⁵

On April 3, 2020, then-Chief Judge Barbera issued the "Administrative Order on Emergency Tolling or Suspension of Statutes of Limitations and Statutory and Rules Deadlines Related to the Initiation of Matters and Certain Statutory and Rules Deadlines in Pending Matters[,]" ("First Administrative Order") ⁶ pursuant to her authority under Article IV, § 18(b)(1) of the Maryland Constitution and Maryland Rule 16-1003(a)(7). ⁷ First Admin. Ord. at 1 (Apr. 3, 2020), archived at:

484 Md. 564

https://perma.cc/568M-28TV. The First Administrative Order tolled the filing deadlines regarding the initiation of matters "effective March 16, 2020, by the number of days that the courts [were] closed to the public due to the COVID-19 emergency[.]" First Admin. Ord. at 2. The First Administrative Order noted that "[s]uch deadlines further shall be extended by a period to be described in an order by the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals terminating the COVID-19 emergency period[.]" Id. The First Administrative Order also provided that "[a]ny such filings made within the period to be described [in a subsequent order] shall relate back to the day before the deadline expired[.]" Id.

The First Administrative Order was amended several times. On April 24, 2020, former Chief Judge Barbera issued an Amended Administrative Order, which clarified that "no ... parties shall be compelled to prove ... their practical inability to comply with [a deadline related to the initiation of a matter] if it occurred during the COVID-19 emergency to obtain the relief that this Administrative Order provides[.]" Am. Admin. Ord. Clarifying at 2 (Apr. 24, 2020), archived at: https://perma.cc/87KX-Y957. Shortly thereafter, the former Chief Judge

484 Md. 565

issued another Amended Administrative Order on May 4, 2020, which also clarified that the tolling period

300 A.3d 72

applied to "deadlines to conduct pending judicial proceedings[.]" Am. Admin. Ord. Further Clarifying at 3 (May 4, 2020), archived at: https://perma.cc/9T6H-VPFY. Then, on May 22, 2020, the former Chief Judge issued a Revised Administrative Order, which provided that the "offices of the clerks of court [would] be reopened to the public on July 20, 2020," pursuant to a separate administrative order. Revised Admin. Ord. at 2 (May 22, 2020), archived at: https://perma.cc/58SR-UWEH (citing Administrative Order On the Progressive Resumption of Full Function of Judiciary Operations Previously Restricted Due to the COVID-19 Emergency (May 22, 2020), archived at: https://perma.cc/T34Y-SBN7 ). ⁸

The Revised Administrative Order defined the timeframe when deadlines related to the initiation of matters were "tolled or suspended" as "the days that the offices of the clerks of court were closed to the public (from March 16, 2020 through July 20, 2020)[.]" Id. This order also introduced a fifteen-day extension provision: "With the offices of the clerks of courts to be reopened to the public on July 20, 2020, the filing deadlines to initiate matters are hereby extended by an additional 15 days[.]" Id. at 3 (footnote omitted). This provision included a footnote example of how the extension would apply:

"[I]f two days remained for the filing of a new matter on March 15, 2020, then two days would have remained upon the reopening of the offices of the clerks of court to the public on July 20, 2020. With the additional fifteen days,

484 Md. 566

seventeen days would be left for a timely filing, beginning July 20, 2020."

Id. at 3 n.1. The Revised Administrative Order also amended the relation-back provision to provide: "[a]ny such filings made within the period" of the four-month closure and the fifteen-day extension "shall relate back to the day before the deadline would have expired had it not been tolled or suspended[.]" Id. at 3.

The Fourth Revised Administrative Order, issued on November 12, 2020, and all subsequent administrative tolling orders no longer purported to impose the fifteen-day extension directly but included the following language: "With the offices of the clerks of courts having been reopened to the public on July 20, 2020, the filing deadlines to initiate matters having been, extended by previous Order, by an additional 15 days[.]" Fourth Revised Admin. Ord. at 3 (Nov. 12, 2020), archived at: https://perma.cc/JH9Y-SPE8 (footnote omitted). The Fifth Revised Administrative Order, issued on November 24, 2020, added a provision that retroactively defined "matters" to which the tolling period applied as claims with "deadlines related to initiation [that] would have expired between March 16, 2020, through the termination date of COVID-19 emergency operations in the Judiciary[.]" Fifth Revised Admin. Ord. at 3 (Nov. 24, 2020), archived at: https://perma.cc/NQY3-LQMQ. The Fifth Revised Administrative Order also altered the relation-back provision to account for claims with deadlines that would have elapsed

300 A.3d 73

during the COVID-19 emergency period, as described in the provision that retroactively defined "matters[.]" Id. at 4.

Former Chief Judge Barbera's subsequent orders, including the Tenth Revised...