Taylor v. NationsBank

• Decision Date: 09 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. 1822,1822
• Parties: Garfield TAYLOR v. NATIONSBANK N.A.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

738 A.2d 893

128 Md. App. 414

Garfield TAYLOR v. NATIONSBANK N.A.

No. 1822, Sept. Term, 1998.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

September 9, 1999.

Reconsideration Denied November 9, 1999.

Samuel Sperling (Leonard J. Sperling and Sperling and Framm on the brief), Baltimore, for appellant.

Matthew S. Sturtz (Jefferson V. Wright and Miles & Stockbridge P.C. on the brief), Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before WENNER, HARRELL and SONNER, JJ.

SONNER, Judge.

This is an appeal from the granting of a motion for summary judgment in a suit for sixty million dollars in damages filed by a depositor against the bank in which he maintained a checking account. Appellant, Garfield Taylor, sought damages from the bank in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City for revealing his unlisted phone number to another depositor, a complete stranger, although a fellow employee where he worked. He claimed that the revelation was an invasion of his privacy as well as a breach of confidentiality protected by contract, and that the revelation caused him to suffer severe psychological and physiological distress for which he sought treatment. The lower court held that appellant had failed to present a viable cause of action and granted summary judgment to appellee. As explained below, we shall affirm. In December of 1996 or January of 1997, Walter Scott and appellant, two employees of Fannie Mae,¹ but who were strangers to one another, decided to change the method by which they received their wages and have their pay deposited directly with their bank, NationsBank, rather than receive paychecks, as had been their former practice. Fannie Mae sent Scott a payment advice stub for his initial direct deposit on January 30, 1997. Scott somehow learned that his account did not show the $2,013.92 he knew was due him, so, on Saturday, February 1, he called Nations-Bank to try to determine what had happened. During a conversation with the bank's customer service representative, he mentioned that the account number on his stub was not the same number as his checking account. The customer service representative then determined that the deposit from Fannie Mae had gone into someone else's account—the one maintained by appellant.

Any correcting of the error in the accounts would have had to await the opening of the bank the following Monday morning when NationsBank could contact Fannie Mae. Scott's rent was due on February 5th and he feared that, if the person in whose account his money had been wrongly deposited withdrew it, he would be short his rent payment. He solicited help from the customer service representative as to some means to protect his funds from withdrawal and received the telephone number of appellant with the suggestion that he call him. He did so and, in a short conversation, explained the situation to appellant and requested as well that he not spend any of the pay that had been wrongly deposited. On the following Monday, Fannie Mae corrected the error and NationsBank debited appellant's account and properly credited Scott's account.

The problem for Scott ended there, but appellant, feeling wronged, filed suit against NationsBank and alleged that the phone call by someone using his unlisted number caused him "substantial harm," specifically, "post traumatic stress disorder" and "severe psychological and physical distress," and asked for sixty million dollars in damages. After conducting discovery, both appellant and NationsBank filed for summary judgment. The lower court, after a hearing, granted Nations-Bank's motion and said, while ruling, "I don't believe that under the undisputed facts presented by this case that it presents a viable cause of action ... The case is hereby dismissed."

A court should grant a motion for summary judgment when there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Maryland Rule 2-501(e) (1998). In reviewing the granting of a motion for summary judgment, the proper standard of review is whether the trial court was legally correct. Goodwich v. Sinai Hosp. of Baltimore, Inc., 343 Md. 185, 204, 680 A.2d 1067 (1996); Beatty v. Trailmaster Prods., Inc., 330 Md. 726, 737, 625 A.2d 1005 (1993).

Appellant's suit first alleged that NationsBank was liable for breach of contract, because the depositor's agreement specifically provided that the information that he had given to the bank would be kept private. NationsBank, on the other hand, maintains, first, that it had specific authority to release the information and, second, that the contract specifically relieved the bank from any liability for disclosures to third persons. There were two sets of depositor's agreements that the appellant entered into. First, there was-the agreement appellant signed when he opened an account with Sovran Bank, a bank which NationsBank later succeeded. That agreement provided in pertinent part:

Disclosure of Account Information. The Bank will disclose information to third parties about your account or any transaction thereon in certain circumstances, including, but not limited to, situations where it is necessary for completing any transaction, for complying with government agency or court orders, or for verifying the existence or condition of your account for a third party such as a credit bureau or a merchant or for reporting losses incurred by the Bank in maintaining your account to its subsidiaries and affiliates.

Then, later, he signed an agreement with NationsBank. That agreement provided:

Account Information ... You acknowledge that we provide for your convenience various methods by which you can obtain information on your accounts, and that our reasonable security measures cannot absolutely ensure against "unauthorized" inquiries. You therefore agree that we will not be responsible for the release of information to anyone not authorized by you who has gained possession of your ATM access device or who has learned your identifying characteristics such as personal identification number (PIN), account number, or social security number....

We hold that neither depositor's agreement is controlling under the uncontradicted facts of this dispute. The pertinent provisions in both agreements concern the disclosure of a depositor's account information. An unlisted telephone number, however, hardly qualifies as account information. Rather, it represents an entirely incidental matter, which falls outside the scope of the contractual language in the depositor's agreements. The lower court was correct in finding that appellant did not have a viable cause of action for breach of contract.

Appellant, however, maintains that this Court's holding in Suburban Trust Co. v. Waller, 44 Md.App. 335, 408 A.2d 758 (1979), controls the outcome of the present dispute. In that case, Maurice Waller deposited $800 in his account at the Suburban Trust Company in Montgomery County. The deposit consisted exclusively of sequentially numbered fifty and one hundred dollar bills. Finding the nature of the deposit somewhat suspicious, the bank teller informed his supervisor, who in turn referred the matter to the bank's security department. An assistant security officer contacted the Montgomery County Police Department and learned that there had been a recent residential burglary,...