Tadjer v. Montgomery County, 43
Decision Date | 01 September 1983 |
Docket Number | No. 43,43 |
Citation | 300 Md. 539,479 A.2d 1321 |
Parties | Dick T. TADJER et al. v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Maryland et al. , |
Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
William J. Carter, Washington, D.C. (Joel M. Savits and Carr, Jordan, Coyne & Savits, Rockville, for appellants, AFA Corporation and Guy M. Ammatucci; Read K. McCaffrey and Whiteford, Taylor, Preston, Trimble & Johnston, Baltimore, for appellants, Dick J. Tadjer, Sol Saul Cooper, TCSB, Inc. and Tadjer-Cohen Associates Inspection Company, Ltd., on brief).
A. Katherine Hart, Asst. County Atty., Rockville (Paul A. McGuckian, County Atty., Robert G. Tobin, Jr., Deputy County Atty., and Clyde H. Sorrell, Asst. County Atty., Rockville, on the brief), for appellees.
Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.
We shall here hold that a trial judge was only partially correct when he sustained on the grounds of governmental immunity a demurrer of Montgomery County to third-party claims arising out of injuries sustained on a landfill formerly operated by the County.
As indicated, this case reaches us on demurrer. 1 In considering the sufficiency of a declaration on demurrer we are required to assume the truth of all material and relevant facts that are well pleaded as well as all inferences which can be reasonably drawn from those well pleaded facts. Schwartz v. Merchants Mort. Co., 272 Md. 305, 308, 322 A.2d 544, 546 (1974); Desser v. Woods, 266 Md. 696, 698-99, 296 A.2d 586, 588 (1972).
Michael S. Wodoslawsky sued nine defendants as a result of injuries sustained by him on April 14, 1980, in an explosion of methane gas at his place of employment, an auto body shop, owned by one of the litigants in this case.
Defendants Dick J. Tadjer, Sol Saul Cooper, TCSB, Inc., and Tadjer-Cohen Associates Inspection Company, Ltd., filed one third-party claim against the County. Defendants AFA Corporation and Guy M. Amatucci filed another third-party claim against the County, certain of its employees, and others who are not parties to the proceeding in this Court.
The Court of Special Appeals quoted from the summary by the trial judge of the various third-party complaints
The trial judge and the Court of Special Appeals said that for the purpose of the motion raising preliminary objection and demurrer the County did not contest the following facts which may be gleaned from the declarations:
The trial judge and the Court of Special Appeals further summarized:
The trial judge granted a demurrer as to the third-party claim of Tadjer et al. and the first three counts of the third-party claim of AFA et al. He found that the third-party claims against the County were barred by governmental immunity and the statute of limitations. A specific finding was made that a final judgment should be entered pursuant to the provisions of Maryland Rule 605(a).
The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment in an unreported opinion. The court found it unnecessary to consider any issue other than that of governmental immunity. The intermediate court quoted liberally from the trial court opinion. We granted a petition for the writ of certiorari. We have no issue before us relative to the third count of AFA et al. against the County employees. The petition for certiorari is limited to the issue of governmental immunity. Thus our consideration here is limited to that issue and the conflict between concepts of governmental and proprietary functions.
Montgomery County has not waived governmental immunity. The County claims the landfill and the various actions connected with it are governmental in their nature. The third-party plaintiffs contend that the County was in fact carrying on a proprietary function.
As was pointed out by Judge Eldridge in his concurring and dissenting opinion in Austin v. City of Baltimore, 286 Md. 51, 67-70, 405 A.2d 255, 264-65 (1979), Maryland has more reason, perhaps, than most states to look to the legislative bodies for any change that may be made in the doctrine of governmental immunity since Ch. 53 of the Acts of 1786, which provided for suits against the State, was repealed by Ch. 210 of the Acts of 1820. We, therefore, have continued to recognize the doctrine. Austin, 286 Md. at 54-58, 405 A.2d at 257-59. See also Board v. John K. Ruff, Inc., 278 Md. 580, 584, 366 A.2d 360, 362-63 (1976).
We observed in Austin, 286 Md. at 59, 405 A.2d at 259, in E. Eyring Co. v. City of Baltimore, 253 Md. 380, 382-383 252 A.2d 824, 825 (1969), and in Baltimore v. State, 168 Md. 619, 625, 179 A. 169, 171 (1935), that the distinction between governmental and proprietary functions is sometimes illusory in practice. In Baltimore v. State, 173 Md. 267, 195 A. 571 (1937), Judge Offutt said for the Court:
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