Warner v. German

• Decision Date: 01 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 1319,1319
• Citation: 100 Md.App. 512,642 A.2d 239
• Parties: Albert P. WARNER, et ux. v. Edgar Hobbs GERMAN, Jr., et al. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 512

100 Md.App. 512

642 A.2d 239

Albert P. WARNER, et ux. v. Edgar Hobbs GERMAN, Jr., et al.

No. 1319, Sept. Term, 1993.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 29, 1994.

Reconsideration Denied June 28, 1994.

E. Scott Collins, Ocean City, for appellants.

David B. Douse (Chris S. Mason and Webb, Burnett, Jackson, Cornbrooks & Wilber, on the brief), Salisbury, for appellees.

Argued before BLOOM, FISCHER and HARRELL, JJ.

HARRELL, Judge.

On 5 March 1992 the Mayor & City Council of Ocean City (Ocean City) filed suit in the District Court for Worcester County against Edgar Hobbs German Jr. and G.T. Tech, Inc., appellees, for property damage sustained by an Ocean City police car in an automobile accident. On 25 June 1992, Sgt Albert Warner, Ocean City's police employee who had been driving Ocean City's vehicle in the pertinent accident, and his wife, appellants, sued appellees in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County for damages resulting from his personal injuries and her loss of consortium stemming from the accident.

The District Court for Worcester County (Bloxom, J.) found both drivers, Sgt. Warner and Mr. German, to have been negligent and entered judgment in the property damage suit in favor of the appellees on 1 July 1992. The Circuit Court for Worcester County (Eschenburg, J.) affirmed that result on appeal. No further appeal was noted by Ocean City from that judgment.

Appellees thereafter filed in the litigation pending in Baltimore County a motion for summary judgment based on the preclusive effect of the Worcester County judgment. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County granted this motion on 20 April 1993. Appellants filed this timely appeal. They present two questions, which we have slightly re-phrased, for review:

1. Did the lower court err in granting defendants'/appellees' summary judgment?

2. Is the decision in the case of Mayor & City Council of Ocean City v. G.T. Tech and Edgar Hobbs German res judicata as against the appellants?

Facts

On 9 August 1991, Mr. German was driving a vehicle owned by G.T. Tech in Ocean City, Maryland, when he struck an Ocean City police car being driven by Sgt. Albert Warner in the course of his police duties. Both vehicles were damaged as a result of the accident. Sgt. Warner also suffered personal injuries.

On 5 March 1992, the Mayor & City Council of Ocean City filed suit (German I ) against German and G.T. Tech in the District Court for Worcester County for property damage to its police car. The court heard testimony from both drivers during the 1 July 1992 trial and concluded that, although German was negligent in causing the accident, Warner was contributorily negligent. Specifically, Judge Bloxom found that Sgt. Warner had failed to use due care by traveling at 35-40 miles per hour in the bus lane on Coastal Highway, during a "terrible rainstorm," without his emergency equipment in operation. The court therefore entered judgment for the defendants/appellees. The Circuit Court for Worcester County, on appeal by Ocean City, affirmed the judgment and specifically the determination of Sgt. Warner's contributory negligence. Judge Eschenburg posited his decision in the latter regard on Sgt. Warner's failure to activate his emergency equipment under the weather and traffic conditions prevailing at the time of the accident.

Appellants had filed suit (German II ) against German and G.T. Tech in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County on 25 June 1992. The record indicates that the defendants/appellees received notice of this filing on 6 July 1992, six days after the Worcester County District Court trial was held. Appellees filed a Motion for Summary Judgment against appellants on 5 March 1993, arguing that German II should be barred based on the principle of res judicata and appellants' failure to join their personal claims in German I. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County granted this motion on 20 April 1993, and this appeal followed.

Discussion

Standard of Review

Summary judgment is reserved for situations in which the movants clearly demonstrate the absence of any genuine issue of material fact and that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Md.Rule 2-501(a). The threshold issue in a proper motion for summary judgment, therefore, is whether a significant factual dispute exists. See Bond v. NIBCO, Inc., 96 Md.App. 127, 135, 623 A.2d 731 (1993) (ruling that a summary judgment motion "is to be granted unless the parties truly dispute a material fact."). Although all reasonable inferences from the facts are to be considered in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, Maryland courts narrow their focus to those facts that will "somehow affect the outcome of the case." King v. Bankerd, 303 Md. 98, 111, 492 A.2d 608 (1985). Facts that do not pertain to the core questions involved are not "material" and, consequently, are insufficient to avert a proper motion for summary judgment.

Because the absence of any material factual dispute is required for a grant of summary judgment, the trial court essentially makes a ruling as a matter of law. See Heat & Power v. Air Products, 320 Md. 584, 591, 578 A.2d 1202 (1990) ("A trial court determines issues of law when granting summary judgment."). As a result, the ultimate standard for appellate review of the trial court's decision essentially is whether the court was legally correct. Id.

Finally, when analyzing the lower court's decision, we ordinarily are confined to the basis relied on by that court and may not otherwise explain its conclusion by introducing new legal theories. See Cheney v. Bell Nat'l Ins. Co., 315 Md. 761, 764, 556 A.2d 1135 (1989) ("[O]rdinarily we will not affirm the granting of summary judgment for a reason not relied upon by the trial judge."); Geisz v. Greater Baltimore Medical Center, 313 Md. 301, 314 n. 5, 545 A.2d 658 (1988) ("[T]he appellate court will not ordinarily undertake to sustain the judgment by ruling on another ground, not ruled upon by the trial court, if the alternative ground is one as to which the trial court had a discretion to deny summary judgment."). ¹

Res Judicata

In Maryland, the doctrine of res judicata is defined in the following terms [A] judgment between the same parties and their privies is a final bar to any other suit upon the same cause of action, and is conclusive, not only as to all matters that have been decided in the original suit, but as to all matters which with propriety could have been litigated in the first suit.

See Rowland v. Harrison, 320 Md. 223, 229, 577 A.2d 51 (1990). This policy avoids "the expense and vexation attending multiple lawsuits, conserves judicial resources, and fosters reliance on judicial action by minimizing the possibilities of inconsistent decisions." Murray Int'l Freight Corp. v. Graham, 315 Md. 543, 547, 555 A.2d 502 (1989). In order to invoke the doctrine of res judicata properly, a court must be able to conclude the following: (1) the parties are the same as, or in privity with, the parties to the earlier dispute; (2) the issue presented is identical to the one determined in the prior adjudication; and, (3) there was a final judgment on the merits in the initial action. Lone v. Montgomery County, 85 Md.App. 477, 490-91, 584 A.2d 142 (1991), citing Nicholson v. Unsatisfied Claim, 265 Md. 453, 458, 290 A.2d 384 (1972).

The parties in German II, the instant litigation, do not dispute the finality of the first judgment, nor do they dispute the fact that a single issue is common to the two actions, i.e. whether Sgt. Warner was contributorily negligent in causing the accident. Rather, the crux of their argument focuses on whether privity exists between appellants and Sgt. Warner's employer, the Mayor & City Council of Ocean City. Recent Maryland caselaw indicates that an employment relationship alone can suffice to establish privity for purposes of res judicata. In Deleon v. Slear, 328 Md. 569, 616 A.2d 380 (1992), for example, the Court of Appeals barred a plaintiff from suing hospital nurses based on the claim of defamation because he previously had brought the same charges against their employer hospital. Deleon, 328 Md. at 581, 616 A.2d 380 ("We conclude that the nurses, by virtue of their employment relationship with the hospital, are in privity with the hospital for purposes of applying the doctrine of res judicata."). See also Lake v. Jones, 89 Md.App. 579, 598 A.2d 858 (1991) (establishing the existence of privity between an injured party and her insurance company).

Other Maryland caselaw, however, indicates that there are other, more involved, aspects to the concept of privity. As the Court of Appeals has explained:

[F]or the purpose of the application of the rule of res judicata, the term "parties" includes all persons who have a direct interest in the subject matter of the suit, and have a right to control the proceedings, make defense, examine the witnesses, and appeal if an appeal lies.... So, where persons, although not formal parties of record, have a direct interest in the suit, and in the advancement of their interest take open and substantial control of its prosecution, or they are so far represented by another that their interests receive actual and efficient protection, any judgment recovered therein is conclusive upon them to the same extent as if they had been formal parties.

Ugast v. LaFontaine, 189 Md. 227, 232-33, 55 A.2d 705 (1947) (citations omitted). See also Dill v. Avery, 305 Md. 206, 215, 502 A.2d 1051 (1986) (emphasizing plaintiffs' right of control in the previous proceedings in concluding that the identical parties requirement of res judicata had been satisfied).

In further defining the application of the concept of privity within the context of res judicata, we refer to the related procedural bar of collateral estoppel, in which this issue has been examined recently in greater depth. The doctrine of collateral estoppel is similar, but not identical, to...