Underwood v. Meyers Constr. Co.
| Decision Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 130,130 |
| Parties | ERIC UNDERWOOD v. MEYERS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC. |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
Circuit Court for Baltimore County
Case No.: 03-C-13-008260 ML
UNREPORTED
Meredith, Friedman, Zarnoch, Robert A. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.
Opinion by Meredith, J.
This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
Eric Underwood, appellant, hired Meyers Construction Company, Inc. ("Meyers"), appellee, to perform home repairs after an 80-foot tree fell on Underwood's house during the derecho storm that tore through Maryland on June 29, 2012. Before Meyers completed its work, a trespasser entered Underwood's property during the night, stole the air conditioning unit, and also tampered with a copper fuel-line that was connected to the oil tank, which resulted in a flood of heating oil in the basement of Underwood's home.
Meyers eventually filed a petition in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, seeking a mechanic's lien against Underwood's property for amounts it claimed to be due for work it performed at the property, and Underwood filed a counterclaim seeking compensation for alleged faulty work and the damages caused by the oil flood.
The case proceeded to trial. At the conclusion of the trial, the trial judge found in favor of Meyers on the claim for a mechanic's lien, and the court established a lien in the amount of $80,868.55. The court did not enter any ruling with respect to Meyers's claim for breach of contract, and did not rule on Meyers's request that it enter an order for the property to be sold to satisfy the mechanic's lien.
Also, at the conclusion of the trial, the trial judge submitted to the jury Underwood's claim that negligence on the part of Meyers was a proximate cause of the damages Underwood incurred as a result of the oil spill. The jury found in favor of Underwood on the negligence claim, and awarded compensatory damages in the amount of $47,263.82.
After judgment was entered on the jury's verdict, Meyers filed a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and argued, inter alia, that the jury's award ofdamages should be reduced because Underwood had been compensated by his own homeowner's insurer in the amount of $11,700, and had received oil-spill clean-up funds from the Maryland Department of the Environment ("MDE") in the amount of $19,500. The trial judge ruled that the collateral damages rule does not apply to tort cases seeking compensation for property damages. On that basis, the court granted Meyers's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and reduced the amount of the judgment in favor of Underwood to $12,587.00, which represented the amount Underwood had paid to the oil remediation contractor minus the amounts he had recovered from his homeowner's insurer and the MDE clean-up fund.
Despite the fact that there was not a final judgment disposing of all claims against all parties at that point in time, Underwood noted an appeal, and Meyers filed a cross appeal. As we explained in an unreported opinion, see Eric Underwood v. Meyers Construction Company, Inc., No. 1740, Sept. Term 2014, 2015 WL 6108022 (unreported opinion filed September 24, 2015), we concluded that we had no jurisdiction to hear the appeals due to the lack of a final judgment disposing of all claims, and, we dismissed those appeals as premature.
After the case was sent back to the circuit court, the parties agreed to resolve all remaining undecided issues by way of a stipulation. As Underwood states in the brief he filed in the current appeal, although he "disputed Meyers Construction's claim," he "settled the mechanics lien/judgment for the court ordered $80,868.55 to finalize all matters and expedite an appeal." But, he emphasizes, "[a]s a condition of settlement, [Underwood]preserved the right to appeal his counter-claim." A stipulation signed by counsel for all parties was filed in the circuit court stating that the parties had agreed "to the dismissal of [Meyers's] Counts I (Mechanic's Lien) and Count II (Breach of Contract) with prejudice."
Underwood again noted an appeal, and Meyers again noted a cross-appeal.
In this appeal, Underwood presents the following questions in his brief, which we have slightly reordered:
In its cross-appeal, Meyers adds the following question:
6. Should the trial court have granted Meyers'[s] motions for judgment notwithstanding [the verdict] as to the negligence count in Underwood's Counter-Claim when Underwood failed to demonstrate the existence of a tort duty?
We conclude that the trial court erred in granting Meyers's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and reducing the judgment it had initially entered in favor of Underwood in accordance with the jury's verdict. Otherwise, we perceive no reversible error. We shall remand the case with instructions for the circuit court to vacate the judgment entered on December 16, 2014, and then reinstate and reenter the judgment in favor of Underwood against Meyers in the amount originally entered on September 11, 2014, i.e., $47,263.82.
In Sage Title Grp., LLC v. Roman, 455 Md. 188, 201 (2017), the Court of Appeals described the pertinent standard of appellate review as follows:
Upon review of a trial court's grant or denial of a motion for JNOV, made pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-532, we review whether the trial court's decision was legally correct. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Albright, 433 Md. 303, 349, 71 A.3d 30, 58 (2013). We must "resolve all conflicts in the evidence in favor of the [non-moving party] and must assume the truth of all evidence as may naturally and legitimately be deduced therefrom which tend to support the plaintiff's right to recover." Id. (quoting Smith v. Bernfeld, 226 Md. 400, 406, 174 A.2d 53, 55 (1961)). "If the non-moving party offers competent evidence that rises above speculation, hypothesis, and conjecture, the judgment notwithstanding the verdict should be denied." Cooper v. Rodriguez, 443 Md. 680, 707, 118 A.3d 829 (2015) (quoting Barnes v. Greater Balt. Med. Ctr., Inc., 210 Md. App. 457, 480, 63 A.3d 620,633-34(2013)).
As we said in Piquette v. Stevens, 128 Md. App. 590, 598 (1999):
"A motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict tests the legal sufficiency of the evidence and is reviewed under the same standard as a motion for judgment made during trial." Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Tufts, 118 Md. App. 180, 190, 702 A.2d 422 (1997), cert. denied, 349 Md. 104, 707 A.2d 89 (1998). "In reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion for judgment in a jury trial, we must conduct the same analysis as the trial court,viewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party." Id. at 189, 702 A.2d 422. Moreover, "we must assume the truth of all credible evidence and all inferences of fact reasonably deductible from the evidence. . . ." Id. at 190, 702 A.2d 422. "If there exists any legally competent evidence, however slight, from which the jury could have found as it did, we must affirm the trial court's denial of the motion." Id. at 191, 702 A.2d 422. Conversely, we must reverse the trial court's grant of the motion if there exists any legally competent evidence from which the jury could have found as it did.
When a huge tree fell upon Underwood's home on June 29, 2012, Underwood contacted his insurance carrier, and the insurer hired Meyers to respond to the home, remove the tree, and install weather protection on the roof. In September 2012, Underwood entered into a contract with Meyers to perform repairs of the storm damage as well as some upgrades to the home for a total price of $141,491.92. Underwood moved into a rental apartment to wait for the repairs to be completed. The contract called for the work to be "substantially completed within approximately seventy five (75) business days," but the contract did not state that time was of the essence.
On October 22, 2012, while Meyers's repair personnel were at the job site, a stranger came on the property and asked to take the damaged air conditioning unit for scrap metal. The stranger was asked to leave. The following morning, when Meyers's framing contractor arrived at the job site, the workmen observed that, during the night, someone had tampered with a copper fuel-line that was connected to the furnace, which resulted in a flood of heating oil in the basement of Underwood's home. And the air conditioning unit was gone. There was no sign of forced entry. Meyers's management contactedUnderwood's insurance carrier, and then contacted an oil spill mitigation company --- Clean Ventures --- to assist with the oil in the basement. The remediation process cost over $40,000 and took approximately two months to complete, during which period little progress could be made on the items covered by Meyers's contract.
After Underwood moved back into the home in March of 2013, he...
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