Vanhook v. Merchants Mut. Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 11 July 1974
• Docket Number: No. 699,699
• Citation: 22 Md.App. 22,321 A.2d 540
• Parties: Jessie Clarence VANHOOK et al. v. MERCHANTS MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 22

22 Md.App. 22

321 A.2d 540

Jessie Clarence VANHOOK et al. v. MERCHANTS MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY.

No. 699.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

July 11, 1974.

Clarence M. Thomas, Baltimore, for appellants.

Emanuel H. Horn and Jacob D. Hornstein, Baltimore, for appellee.

Argued before POWERS, GILBERT and LOWE, JJ.

POWERS, Judge.

Ordinarily we preface a discussion of the legal principles applicable to a case with a review of the facts before the lower court, to which the legal principles are to be applied. In this case, there were no facts before the court. We are limited to noting the procedural steps followed which led up to the judgment from which this appeal was taken.

Merchants Mutual Insurance Company filed in the Baltimore City Court on 24 September 1971 a petition for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. The gist of the allegations of its petition is that on 9 May 1970, in compliance with requirements of the Maryland Automobile Insurance Plan for Assigned Risks, it issued a policy of liability insurance on a 1969 Ford 1/2 ton truck to Jessie Clarence Vanhook. The petition alleges that on 29 December 1970 the Ford truck was involved in a collision with an automobile operated by Allie Mae Robertson, and owned by Vernon Robertson, Sr. The petition further alleges that following receipt in June, 1971 of a letter making a claim arising out of that collision, the petitioner, for the first time, learned of the collision and learned that the truck was being operated at the time by Edgar Lyndon Wilson, a 16 year old boy. It learned that the truck was not owned by Vanhook, but that a corporation, A-1 Janitorial Service, Inc., was in fact the owner of the truck. It learned also that Edgar Lyndon Wilson's father, Edgar L. Wilson, was the president of that corporation.

The petition named as defendants Vanhook, Edgar L. Wilson, Edgar Lyndon Wilson, A-1 Janitorial Service, Inc., Allie Mae Robertson, Vernon Robertson, Sr., and the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Board.

The petition concluded with a prayer asking the court to declare that the policy of insurance issued by Merchants Mutual Insurance Company to Vanhook did not cover either of the Wilsons or the A-1 Janitorial Service, Inc., and that the insurance company was not obligated to defend the Robertson suit. All defendants promptly filed answers to the petition.

Approximately 18 months after the petition was filed, no proceedings of any kind having taken place after the filing of answers, Merchants Mutual filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that there was no genuine dispute of material facts. A short supporting memorandum by counsel was filed with the motion.

The record contains no affidavits, no depositions, no admissible documentary evidence, no interrogatories, no request for admission of facts, no stipulations by the parties, and no concessions of fact by the parties. In the answers filed by the defendants, certain allegations of the petition were admitted and others were denied. Those admitted did not go to the substantial merits of the controversy, and could not have formed a basis for granting the motion.

In short, there was a complete and total lack of any facts in the record which might enable the court to determine the only questions before it on the motion for summary judgment: (a) was there a genuine dispute as to any material fact, and (b) if not, were the undisputed facts such as to entitle any party to judgment.

On that record, the court held a hearing on the motion on 7 August 1973. There is no transcript of that hearing. Shortly afterward each side filed a memorandum. On 20 September 1973 the court, in a memorandum opinion and ruling, discussed 'the facts' and the law and concluded by 'granting' the motion for summary judgment. On the same day the clerk entered on the docket, 'Judgment absolute in favor of the Plaintiff for costs of suit as against all defendants.' We must observe that we are unable to understand how such a 'judgment absolute', even if there were facts before the court, could serve to declare the rights of the parties. Vanhook, the Wilsons, and A-1 Janitorial Service, Inc. filed this appeal.

Maryland Rule 610 governs summary judgment procedure. It has been said repeatedly that the procedure is not a substitute for a trial, but a means by which the court may determine, summarily, whether a trial is necessary. The Rule has been discussed and applied in a multitude of cases. We shall refer later to a few of them.

It is clear that in ruling on a motion for summary judgment the court does not decide disputed facts, but decides whether any real dispute as to material facts exists. Shatzer v. Kenilworth Warehouses, 261 Md. 88, 274 A.2d 95 (1971), Brown v. Suburban Cadillac, Inc., 260 Md. 251, 272 A.2d 42 (1971). To grant such a motion the court must determine that 'the pleadings, depositions, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.' Rule 610 d. 1. In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, as we said in Knisley v. Keller, 11 Md.App. 269, 273 A.2d 624 (1971) at 272-73:

'The function of the judge is much the same as that he performs at the close of all the evidence in a jury trial when motions for directed verdict or requests for peremptory instructions require him to determine whether an issue requires resolution by a jury, or is to be decided by the court as a matter of law.'

But a court cannot rule summarily as a matter of law until the parties have supported their respective contentions by placing before the court facts which would be admissible in evidence. Brown v. Suburban Cadillac, Inc., supra. Each opposing party is given ample opportunity to place before the court facts which, on the one hand, show that he is entitled as a matter of law to the ruling he seeks, or, on the other hand, show that a fact, material to the opponent's position, is disputed. How the facts are to be placed before the court is explained in the Rule and in the cases applying the Rule. Some of the ways to do it are:

a. By affidavit. If the...