Justia Maryland Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

An Employer appealed from a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Commission (Commission) ordering Employer to pay additional temporary total disability benefits to Employee, who was injured during his employment. After a jury trial, the trial court granted Employee’s motion for judgment and affirmed the award, concluding that the Commission decision was a piece of evidence that needed to be considered by the jury and that Employer was required to introduce the Commission decision into evidence. The court of special appeals reversed, concluding that Appellant was not required to move the award into evidence. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that, in a de novo workers’ compensation jury trial, the appellant is not required to move the Commission decision into evidence. View "Gales v. Sunoco & Amer. Zurich Ins." on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether a borrower may rescind a loan that has not been consummated pursuant to the federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA). Prior to closing on a home refinancing loan, Respondent submitted to the lender a notice of rescission of the loan. Thereafter, Respondent signed a note and deed of trust consistent with the negotiated terms of the loan. The loan proceeds were distributed as previously agreed to by the parties, and Respondent made payments on the note for approximately two years. Respondent subsequently defaulted on the loan, and the home was sold at a foreclosure public auction. Respondent filed exceptions to the foreclosure sale, arguing that he had rescinded the loan. The circuit court overruled the exceptions and ratified the sale. The court of special appeals reversed, holding that the rescission notice was timely because there was no language in 15 U.S.C. 1635 or TILA’s implementing regulation prohibiting a borrower from rescinding a loan prior to consummation of the transaction, and therefore, such an action was supported by statute. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that, under TILA, a loan may not be rescinded before it is consummated. View "Burson v. Capps" on Justia Law

Respondent was charged with sexual abuse of a minor and related offenses. Prior to trial, Respondent sought, by means of a subpoena duces tecum, access to the victim’s mental health records. The trial court denied Respondent’s request for an in camera review of those records, concluding that Respondent did not sufficiently establish the likelihood that the records sought would provide exculpatory evidence, as required by Goldsmith v. State. Picking up where Goldsmith left off, the Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) a criminal defendant’s trial rights may prevail over a victim’s right to assert a privilege in his or her mental health records; (2) a criminal defendant is entitled to an in camera review of a victim’s mental health records if the defendant can establish a reasonable likelihood that the privileged records contain exculpatory information relevant to the defense; and (3) in this case, Respondent’s proffer did not meet the required threshold, and therefore, he was not entitled to review the victim’s counseling records. View "State v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Two years after she was raped, the victim reported her suspicion that Petitioner was the rapist. Petitioner went to the police station for an interview but refused to provide a DNA sample. After Petitioner left the station, the police took swabs of the armrests of the chair in which he had sat and submitted those swabs for DNA analysis. That DNA sample matched DNA collected from the victim’s home on the day of the rape. Petitioner was charged with first-degree rape and related offenses. Petitioner filed a pre-trial motion seeking suppression of the DNA evidence. The suppression court denied the motion, concluding that Petitioner had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the DNA evidence left on the chair. The court of special appeals affirmed the denial of the suppression motion. Petitioner filed a petition for a writ of certiorari but conceded that the police lawfully obtained his genetic material from the armrests of the chair. The issue before the Court of appeals was whether law enforcement’s testing of the identifying loci within that DNA material was a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the DNA testing at issue was not a search under the Fourth Amendment. View "Raynor v. State" on Justia Law

After Respondent’s employment with a corporation was terminated, she sued the corporation and her sibling business partner, alleging that she was terminated without cause in violation of her employment agreement. The written agreement contained a for-cause provision but no definite term of employment. The trial judge found a breach of the employment agreement, concluding that the agreement transformed what had previously been an “at-will relationship” to a “lifetime contract,” and therefore, Respondent could only be terminated for cause, death, or disability. The court of special appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that the contract was a for-cause contract of continuous duration rather than a lifetime contract, obviating the need for “special consideration.” The corporation appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the employment agreement was not at-will employment nor an oral lifetime employment contract that has been consistently rejected by Maryland courts, but this type of contract was “continuous for-cause” employment. View "Spacesaver Sys., Inc. v. Adam" on Justia Law

In 1995, Petitioner was convicted of first-degree murder and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. In 2006, the Supreme Court determined in Clemons v. State that, under the Frye-Reed standard, Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA) evidence was not generally accepted by the scientific community. Within a few years of his conviction, Petitioner sought post-conviction relief, arguing that the admission of “unreliable” CBLA evidence during his trial in the form of testimony from Agent Ernest Peele of the Federal Bureau of Investigation constituted a due process violation and that his attorneys provided ineffective assistance for failing adequately to cross-examine Agent Peele. The circuit judge denied relief, and the court of special appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals reversed Petitioner’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, holding that Petitioner’s attorneys rendered ineffective assistance when they failed to investigate a report Peele co-authored in 1991 that presaged the flaws in CBLA evidence and to challenge the State’s scientific evidence on cross-examination at trial. View "Kulbicki v. State" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, Petitioner was convicted of one count each of first degree rape, second degree rape, second degree assault, and false imprisonment. The court of special appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the circuit court did not err when it excluded from evidence a police report that contained a prior allegedly inconsistent statement of the complaining witness; (2) even if the trial court erred in failing to strike testimony of an expert forensic nurse, the error was harmless; and (3) under the facts of this case, Petitioner’s conviction for false imprisonment should be merged into his conviction for first degree rape. Remanded. View "Brooks v. State" on Justia Law

Nordstrom, Inc. created several subsidiary corporations, including NIHC, Inc., which engaged in a series of transactions, with each other and with Nordstrom, involving the licensing rights to Nordstrom’s trademarks. The rights to use Nordstrom’s trademarks eventually ended up back with Nordstrom. In the process, Nordstrom’s Maryland taxable income was significantly reduced, and Nordstrom realized a significant gain. The Comptroller of the Treasury issued tax assessments against the subsidiaries’ income, determining that the transactions were an effort to shift income from Nordstrom, where a portion of the income would be taxable by Maryland, to the subsidiaries, where the income would escape Maryland taxation, as the subsidiaries had arguably no nexus to Maryland. The tax court affirmed the assessments against the two subsidiaries, concluding that the activities of the subsidiaries must be considered the activities of Nordstrom, which had a nexus with Maryland, and therefore, the subsidiaries’ income was taxable by Maryland. The circuit court and court of special appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that NIHC did not carry its burden of showing that the Comptroller’s assessment was wrong. View "NIHC, Inc. v. Comptroller of the Treasury" on Justia Law

At issue in this case were two of Maryland’s wage enforcement laws: the Wage and Hour Law (WHL) and the Wage Payment and Collection Law (WPCL). Following her departure from her place of employment Plaintiff sued her Employer claiming that her Employer wrongfully withheld her overtime wages. On remand, Plaintiff filed an unopposed memorandum asserting a claim under the WHL and the WPCL, requesting unpaid overtime and treble damages under the WPCL. The circuit court awarded Plaintiff $6,201 in unpaid overtime wages but denied her request for enhanced damages. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the circuit court and remanded, holding that the trial court erred when it failed to make an explicit finding regarding whether Employer withheld overtime wages as a result of a bona fide dispute, and the evidence did not support a finding that Employer withheld Plaintiff’s wages pursuant to a bona fide dispute. View "Peters v. Early Healthcare Giver, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2000, DCW Dutchship Island, LLC (DCW), a corporation wholly owned by Daryl Wagner, purchased the Little Island in the Magothy River. At that time, the Island measured approximately 1.92 acres in area and was improved by a single-family house and related structures built in the 1920s. Wagner demolished the house and built a new one. In November 2004, the County authorities discovered the construction activities on the Island and notified DCW of numerous violations. In December, DCW sought variances from the unobserved requirements of the Critical Area Law for each of the structures and improvements on the Island. DCW sought also an amendment to the critical area buffer map, which prohibited most development activity within 100 feet of the shoreline. A County Administrative Hearing Officer heard the evidence for and against the requests for variances. The Magothy River Association (MRA) appeared at the variance hearings to oppose DCW’s requests. The Hearing Officer granted some of the variances. Wagner administratively appealed the denials, and the MRA, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), and the Maryland Critical Area Commission for the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays appealed the decision to grant the variances, all to the County Board of Appeals. At the Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals (the “Board”) hearing, Wagner moved to dismiss MRA and CBF as parties to the administrative proceedings. The Board ultimately concluded that CBF did not have standing to appeal the granted variances because it did not participate in the hearing before the Administrative Hearing Officer (“AHO”). After 24 evenings of hearings on the subject, the Board revised the decision of the AHO to include certain conditions on the variances.The Maryland Critical Area Commission for the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays (the Commission), MRA, CBF, and Wagner all sought judicial review of the Board’s decision at the Circuit Court. In addition, CBF filed a Motion for Summary Judgment limited to the issue of whether the Board improperly excluded CBF from the variance portion of the proceedings. The court denied all motions relevant to the variance matter. The Circuit Court then affirmed the decision of the Board. The Commission and CBF appealed the Circuit Court’s decision to the Court of Special Appeals, arguing that the Critical Area Act applied to the variance proceedings, that the Board erred in refusing to allow CBF to participate as a party in the administrative process, and that the Board did not base its decision on substantial evidence in the record. In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals rejected these arguments and affirmed the Circuit Court. MRA and CBF then petitioned the Court of Appeals for certiorari. The issues this case presented for the Court's review were: (1) whether CBF had standing to participate in the variance proceedings before the Board of Appeals on the grounds that MRA, which advocated the same position, had standing; (2) whether AACC 3-1-104(a) violated the Express Powers Act, thus making the Board’s denial of standing to CBF on the basis of it erroneous; (3) whether the Board of Appeals violated its own rules when it held that CBF could not cross-examine witnesses, resulting in CBF being denied due process; and (4) whether the Board of Appeals erred in granting Wagner after-the-fact variances. The Court answered the first three questions in the negative and the fourth in the affirmative, but only in part. View "Chesapeake Bay Found. v. DCW Dutchship" on Justia Law