Maddy v. Jones

• Decision Date: 07 December 1962
• Docket Number: No. 104,104
• Citation: 230 Md. 172,186 A.2d 482
• Parties: Ardieth MADDY v. Jack JONES.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 172

230 Md. 172

186 A.2d 482

Ardieth MADDY v. Jack JONES.

No. 104.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Dec. 7, 1962.

As Modified on Denial of Reargument Jan. 16, 1963.

Leonard A. Orman, Baltimore, for appellant.

Richard G. Whiteford, Baltimore (Due, Nickerson, Whiteford & Taylor, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before HENDERSON, HAMMOND, HORNEY, MARBURY and SYBERT, JJ.

SYBERT, Judge.

The single question raised here is whether the lower court erred in its finding that the appellant, Ardieth Maddy, was not a resident of Maryland at the time of an accident between an automobile driven by the appellee, Jack Jones, and a motorcycle on which appellant was riding as a passenger, and consequently ineligible to obtain payment from the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund of a judgment which he recovered against Jones.

The forty-nine year old appellant, a native of West Virginia had lived for many years in that State, with intervals of employment elsewhere. At the suggestion of his brother, Almo Maddy, a resident of Maryland working for Hallmen Enterprises, he came to Baltimore to take employment which had been offered by Mr. Hallmen, arriving on June 21, 1959, from Beckley, West Virginia, as a passenger on a motorcycle driven by another brother, Rudolph Maddy, a resident of West Virginia. Two days later, and five days before the job with Hallmen was to commence, the accident above mentioned occurred on a Baltimore street, resulting in substantial injury to appellant.

Appellant filed suit in the Superior Court of Baltimore City against appellee, Jones, who was a non-resident and uninsured, obtaining a jury verdict and a judgment in the amount of $5,000. Having given, prior to suit, the notice of intention to make claim required by the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law, Code (1957 and 1962 Cum. Supp.), Art. 66 1/2, Secs. 150-179, appellant, alleging that he was a resident of Maryland, filed application in the same proceedings for an order directing payment of his judgment from the Fund. Sec. 150(g) defines a person qualified to recover from the Fund as follows:

"Qualified person' means a resident of this State or the owner of a motor vehicle registered in this State or a resident of another state, territory or federal district of the United States or province of the Dominion of Canada, or foreign country, in which recourse is afforded to residents of this State, of substantially similar character to that provided for by this subtitle.' (Sec. 150(g) was amended in 1961 in a manner not material here.)

It was conceded that appellant did not own a motor vehicle registered in Maryland, and he did not claim to reside in a state having a similar law. (West Virginia has no such statute.) The Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Board filed an answer denying appellant's right to payment from the Fund on the ground that he was not a resident of Maryland, and hence not a 'qualified person', at the time of the accident. The lower court, after hearing testimony, passed an order denying the application for payment, finding that appellant was not a resident of Maryland when he suffered the injury. This appeal is from that order.

After the accident appellant remained at the home of his brother, Almo, and, due to his injuries, was delayed in commencing his employment at Hallmen Enterprises until September, 1959. He testified that he later found himself so incapacitated from those injuries that he was unable to perform the work required, and he left Hallmen Enterprises in February or March, 1960. Mr. Hallmen testified that this termination of employment was mutually agreed upon by appellant and himself because appellant 'just didn't feel right.' Appellant said that subsequently he took some part-time work in Baltimore and in Washington, D. C., staying in Baltimore during the whole time either at the homes of his brother or nephew, or in one or the other of two apartments which he rented. He testified that when he came to Maryland in 1959 he intended to make Baltimore his home.

Appellant claims that he became a Maryland resident when he entered the State with the intention of becoming an employee of Hallmen Enterprises. On the other hand, the Fund Board urges that the lower court was not in error in finding him a non-resident at the time of the accident.

This inquiry as to whether or not the trial court erred in finding that the appellant was not qualified as a resident under Sec. 150(g) presents us with a case of first impression.

The right of an aggrieved party to appeal any final order, decree or judgment under the provisions of the Act has been effective only since March 23, 1962, when Sec. 177A was enacted. Cf. Nicholas, Adm'r v. Galford, 227 Md. 347, 176 A.2d 768 (1962). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the import of the residence requirement. As stated in United States v. Whitcomb, 200 F.Supp. 249, (D.C.Md., 1961), the term 'resident' is not defined in the Maryland Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund statute, and the general definition of the term in Code (1957), Art. 66 1/2, Sec. 2, does not apply to that statute.

The Maryland Act was patterned after the earlier New Jersey law, New Jersey Statutes Annotated (1961 ed.), Title 39, Chap. 6, Secs. 61-91. The courts of that State have had occasion in only a few cases to consider the residence requirement. The term 'resident' is also undefined in the New Jersey statute. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, in Collins v. Yancey, 55 N.J.Super. 514, 151 A.2d 68 (1959), held a native of Virginia, who had lived and worked in New Jersey for five months before being injured in an accident, to be a 'qualified person' under the statute, observing (at p. 71 of 151 A.2d):

'* * * In construing the meaning of the term 'qualified person' as set forth in the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law, it is necessary to consider the objectives and the intent of the Legislature thereunder. The statute is social legislation and is to be liberally construed in order to advance the remedy, with due regard for the proper protection of the Fund against fraud or imposition, so that all who are within the defined classification may receive relief as a matter of the social policy which is the underlying motivation for the passage of the statute. Giles v. Gassert, 23 N.J. 22, 127 A.2d 161 (1956). It is generally recognized that there is an economic hardship resulting to those persons referred to in the statute who, without any fault on their own part, suffer losses through motor vehicle accidents as a result of the negligence of another, and for which losses there is no compensation resulting through any insurance coverage. It is reasonable to contemplate that such losses do in many cases have an adverse effect upon the public welfare in requiring the furnishing, at public expense, of hospital, medical and welfare care and attention.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In the later New Jersey case of Continos v. Parsekian, 68 N.J.Super. 54, 171 A.2d 663 (1961), the court found that a student, living for the summer in the state, who left the state to return to college in the fall, was not such a resident as to qualify under the statute. In a case decided this year, the same court appears to express a cautionary note and to indicate that it will adopt a literal approach in interpreting the New Jersey Act. In Parrot v. Chiselko, 74 N.J.Super. 138, 180 A.2d 710 (1962), a case dealing with the requirement of notice to the Board of intention to make claim, the court, after referring to earlier cases, said (at p. 712 of 180 A.2d):

'The liberality of construction accorded to the statute accents the scope and purposes of the enactment as social legislation, but affords no substitute for proof or evidence necessary for compliance with its terms or conditions. See Szczesny v. Vasquez, 71 N.J.Super. 347, 358-359, 177 A.2d 47 (App.Div. 1962). The admonition that due regard must be given to the protection of the Fund, gives recognition to the fact that it is derived from levies legislatively imposed on registrants of motor vehicles, insured and uninsured, and insurers authorized to write automobile liability insurance in this State.

'It is inevitable that these two basic considerations may become competing factors in given sets of circumstances. Yet, it is important that the court strive to keep them in balance by literal interpretation of the act, leaving to the Legislature its exclusive function to amend or supplement the law, if in the light of experience such action is deemed necessary to accomplish the fundamental legislative purposes.' (Emphasis supplied.)

In addition to Maryland and New Jersey, North Dakota has established an Unsatisfied Judgment Fund, and New York has as its equivalent a Motor Vehicle Indemnification Corporation. However, no decision of...