Blake v. Chadwick

249 Md.App. 696

246 A.3d 752

Annette BLAKE

v.David CHADWICK, et al.

No. 1939, Sept. Term, 2019

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

February 26, 2021

Argued by: Lon C. Engel (Engel Law Group, PC on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellant.

Argued by: Rachel Simmonsen (Michael Redmond, Appellate Practice Group, Steven J. Potter, Chief Solicitor, Litigation, Baltimore City Department of Law of Baltimore, MD, Ryan J. Knopp, Vernon & Fanshaw of Owings Mills, MD on the brief), for Appellee.

Fader, C.J., Zic, Charles E. Moylan, Jr. (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Moylan, J.

As a result of a three-car collision on Martin Luther King Boulevard ("MLK Boulevard"), the appellant, Annette Blake ("Ms. Blake"; "the Plaintiff"; "Vehicle #3"), filed suit against the other two drivers in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Because of the multiplicity of parties and of vehicles, we will try meticulously to keep them all as precisely identified as possible. Ms. Blake was the Plaintiff and she brought suit on behalf of herself and her two minor grandchildren, all of whom were in Vehicle #3. There are two appellees. The first is Defendant #1, David Chadwick ("Mr. Chadwick"), who was driving a truck owned by his co-defendant, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City, and referred to herein as Vehicle #1. The second appellee is Defendant #2, Denia Phillips Watkins ("Ms. Watkins"), who was driving Vehicle #2.

A Flurry Of Pleadings

The accident occurred on August 2, 2016. Suit was filed by Ms. Blake against both defendants on November 27, 2018. On August 28, 2019, Mr. Chadwick, along with the City of Baltimore, filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. Ms. Blake filed an Opposition to Chadwick's Motion for Summary Judgment on September 16, 2019. Ms. Watkins, Defendant #2, who had not theretofore been heard from, filed a Response to Co-Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment on September 20, 2019, in which she also asked for Summary Judgment in her favor.

A hearing was held before the circuit court on October 16, 2019 on Chadwick's Motion for Summary Judgment. Although not listed as part of the title of the hearing, Defendant #2, Ms. Watkins, was represented by counsel at the hearing, who fully participated in the hearing in every respect. On October 25, 2019, the court issued an Order and Memorandum Opinion in which it found that Ms. Blake had been contributorily negligent and, accordingly, it granted Summary Judgment in favor of Defendant #1, Mr. Chadwick. There was no disposition made with respect to Defendant #2, Ms. Watkins.

On November 4, 2019, the appellant, Ms. Blake, filed a Motion for Clarification, Reconsideration, and Alteration. In that motion, Ms. Blake made express reference to a pleading filed by Ms. Watkins in which she also had requested Summary Judgment in her favor. Ms. Blake pointed out that the court's Order in the case "had been silent as to Plaintiff's claims against Defendant #2, Ms. Watkins." Among the clarifications sought by the Motion were:

5. All Plaintiffs seek clarification of the Order with respect to the continuance of their claims against Defendant Denia Watkins.

On November 18, 2019, both defendants filed separate Oppositions to the Plaintiff's Motion For Clarification in which they each renewed their requests for Summary Judgment. On December 9, 2019, the court issued an Order in which it reaffirmed its granting of Summary Judgment in favor of both defendants, Mr. Chadwick and Ms. Watkins.

Summary Judgment

The basic standard of appellate review with respect to the granting of Summary Judgment was well articulated by Rooney v. Statewide Plumbing & Heating-Gen. Contractors, Inc., 265 Md. 559, 563, 290 A.2d 496 (1972) :

If the pleadings, depositions, admissions, and affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, then summary judgment should be granted.

See also Rossello v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., 468 Md. 92, 102, 226 A.3d 444 (2020).

The granting of summary judgment is reviewed de novo . Petty v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore City, 232 Md. App. 116, 121, 156 A.3d 976 (2017). "In reviewing a grant of summary judgment under Md. Rule 2-501, we independently review the record to determine whether the parties properly generated a dispute of material fact and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Hill v. Cross Country Settlements, LLC, 402 Md. 281, 293, 936 A.2d 343 (2007). In granting or denying a motion for summary judgment, a trial court makes no findings of fact, and in deciding whether a material factual dispute exists, all reasonable inferences drawn from the facts must be resolved in favor of the non-moving party. King v. Bankerd, 303 Md. 98, 111, 492 A.2d 608 (1985).

All parties agreed that this was an appropriate case for the granting of Summary Judgment. There were no genuine disputes with respect to any of the basic first-level facts. The only dispute was whether those facts, as a matter of law, justified a finding that the appellant-plaintiff, Ms. Blake, was barred from recovery against either defendant on the ground that she herself had been contributorily negligent.

A Three-Car Pile-Up: Tinker To Evers To Chance

The accident itself was simply the final episode of a significantly longer chain of events. It is nevertheless the place to begin before we undertake our longer look backward. The accident occurred in the northbound lanes of the Martin Luther King Boulevard, immediately north of the point where an exit ramp from MLK Boulevard leads up to eastbound traffic on Mulberry Street. At that point, there are three northbound lanes on the MLK, but no semblance of a shoulder to either the right or the left.

The timing is also of critical significance. The accident occurred on August 2, 2016 at approximately 4:30 P.M. That was at the height of the late-afternoon rush hour traffic when the congestion was literally bumper to bumper. The appellant, Ms. Blake, in Vehicle #3 (a minivan), was in the right-hand lane. Immediately after the point where she had passed the exit ramp up to Mulberry Street, the engine in her minivan overheated and her minivan came to a complete stop. Ms. Blake turned on her hazard lights and then placed a call to her auto repairman, who could only advise her to let the minivan cool off, notwithstanding the fact that she was sitting on center stage. From the moment her minivan broke down through the conclusion of her call to her auto repairman, approximately two minutes elapsed. During those two minutes, Ms. Blake did not attempt to take herself or her two grandchildren, who were in the rear seat of the minivan, to a place of safety off the crowded roadway and onto the sidewalk.

It was just as Ms. Blake was finishing her phone call to her auto repairman that Vehicle #2, a 2007 Mazda 6, operated by Defendant #2, Ms. Watkins, came crashing into her minivan.

The right front side of the Mazda 6 crashed into the middle driver's side door of the left side of the minivan.

Ms. Watkins had also been driving in the right lane when she noticed that Ms. Blake's minivan had come to a full stop in the right lane in front of her. In full control of her own vehicle, she also came to a full stop and waited. She waited until the middle lane, immediately to her left, had cleared of traffic before she moved out into that lane in order to drive around Ms. Blake's stalled vehicle. In her deposition, she had testified:

I could see a car that was stalled up ahead of me. I stopped well before I got to the car, because there were cars going past in the other lane. I waited until it was clear, looked out the window just to see that it was clear, got into the middle lane, my car was hit by the truck. It was pushed into the van that was stalled. The truck kept going and it hit a tree on the right side.

(Emphasis supplied.)

It was at that point that Vehicle #1, the 4 by 4 pickup truck driven by Mr. Chadwick and owned by the City of Baltimore came crashing into Ms. Watkins’ Mazda in the middle of the center lane.¹ Just as Ms. Watkins was moving from the right-hand lane into the middle lane, Mr. Chadwick, driving the City truck, was moving from the left-hand lane into the same middle lane. It was virtually a simultaneous attempted merger. In his deposition, Mr. Chadwick described the collision:

At the time I was traveling north on Martin Luther King. Coming up to Martin Luther King and Mulberry Street I could see a disabled vehicle in the first lane past Mulberry Street. Traveling past, going past I was in between Mulberry and Franklin Street. About four cars was in front of me at the light. I get a call from dispatch saying that I have another emergency to go to, so I put my blinker on, my right blinker to get into the center lane. By it being heavy traffic I'm taking my time, I'm looking cautiously multiple times into the center lane, so I could have clear path to maneuver into the center lane. As I maneuver into the center lane I saw a clear path. Excuse me, I saw a clear path, so I went to go to maneuver into the center lane. I pushed on the gas so I can get into the center lane and I heard a loud crash. I lost control of the vehicle and I went up top of the curb into a tree.

(Emphasis supplied.) Mr. Chadwick explained that as his truck and Ms. Watkins’ Mazda essentially merged into the same space, the Mazda had hit his truck "in the middle of the rear tire." From the points of impact on the respective vehicles, it appeared that in the race for the middle lane, Mr. Chadwick in his truck enjoyed a half a length lead over Ms. Watkins in her Mazda.

It was that collision between Vehicle #1 and Vehicle #2 that propelled Vehicle #2 into its collision with Vehicle #3, Ms. Blake's stalled minivan. The trifecta was complete. Ms. Blake filed suit against both Mr. Chadwick and Ms. Watkins. Both of those defendants, in turn, moved for Summary Judgment, claiming that Ms. Blake had...