City of Annapolis v. Clemens

CITY OF ANNAPOLIS, et al. v. CARLA CLEMENS

No. 2323

COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND

September Term, 2018

June 17, 2020

Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County

Case No. C-02-CV-16-002647

UNREPORTED

Fader, C.J., Beachley, Kenney, James A., III (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Opinion by Kenney, 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.

On August 20, 2013, appellant Corporal Andrew Ascione¹ of the Annapolis Police Department took Carla Clemens to the Anne Arundel Medical Center ("AAMC") for an involuntary mental health evaluation. Nearly three years later, Ms. Clemens filed a Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County against Corporal Ascione, Anne Arundel Medical Center and nine medical providers, the City of Annapolis, and the Annapolis Police Department.² Her claims included false imprisonment, assault, battery, deprivation of constitutional rights under Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.

A jury returned a verdict in favor of Ms. Clemens on a single count of false imprisonment and awarded $10,000 in damages. The City of Annapolis ("City") and Corporal Ascione³ (collectively, the "appellants") filed a timely appeal, presenting four questions which we have rephrased and reordered:

I. Did the Circuit Court abuse its discretion in denying defendants' motion to dismiss with prejudice for insufficiency of service of process and for lack of prosecution?

II. Did the Circuit Court err in prohibiting defendants their right to impeach plaintiff?

III. Did the Circuit Court err in denying defendants' motion for judgment without the opportunity for argument, and defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding verdict?

IV. Did the Circuit Court err in the management of the jury's verdict form as to count I for false imprisonment?

We answer the first two questions in the negative, and questions three and four in the affirmative.

FACTUAL & PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On August 20, 2013, Bonnie Simonds called 911 and reported the following:

I have a friend who['s] more of an acquaintance than a friend, I haven't talked to her in a long time, but I did just talk to her tonight. And she is totally distraught, she's in tears, she said that she's avoiding my callsbecause she didn't want to have this conversation with me. Um she said that everyone hates her, she can't hold a job, um there's nothing good that is ever going to happen in her life, and she's going to kill herself or get in her truck and drive off and if I hear from her in a week that means that she didn't do it. But I'm just really, really concerned about this woman, like I said I don't know her very well.⁴

When Corporal Ascione responded to Ms. Simonds's home in response to the 911 call, she identified Ms. Clemens as the person who had "called her in absolute hysterics." In her written statement, she stated:

I received a text message from an acquaintance at 7:30 pm from Carla Clemens. She sounded depressed. I called her and we spoke for approx[imately] 10 minutes. She was in tears, distraught and out of control. She said she was either going to get in her truck and drive or kill herself!

I called suicide hotline and then 911. I tried calling her. She didn't answer or return my messages. I am very concerned about Carla's welfare mentally. I think she needs psychiatric help so that she does not harm herself!

After speaking with Ms. Simonds, Corporal Ascione, along with Officer Robert Moore, drove to the home of Ms. Clemens's parents, Barbara and Robert Clemens. The officers informed Ms. Clemens's mother that "they had a call or something to that effect[and] that someone was worried about [Ms. Clemens] and couldn't find her." The officers asked the parents to "get in touch with them if [Ms. Clemens] happened to get in touch."

Robert Clemens gave Corporal Ascione the address of Ms. Clemens's apartment in Annapolis, and agreed to meet him there. Upon arrival, Corporal Ascione knocked on the door. When there was no response, he asked an apartment employee to allow him entry to the apartment, where he, along with Officer Moore and a Sergeant Kandtado, conducted a welfare check. Ms. Clemens was not there.

Ms. Clemens testified that she was at a pier near her parent's home and later at a friend's home when the police were looking for her. During that time, she "left [her] phone in the car" because she "wasn't expecting any calls." On her way home, she received a message from her parents that they were looking for her. She called them immediately and let them know where she was.

Corporal Ascione was preparing a missing-persons report when he heard from Ms. Clemens's mother. She told him she had heard from Ms. Clemens and that she was fine and on her way home. Corporal Ascione then drove to Ms. Clemens's apartment, where he found her in her vehicle with the lights on and the motor running in the travel area of the parking lot.

Ms. Clemens testified that when she saw Corporal Ascione, she identified herself and told him "I'm fine" and "I want to go inside." He asked her to move her vehicle to a designated parking space, which she described as "very dark."

According to Ms. Clemens:

He asked me a couple questions. He asked me if I was okay and I said yes. He asked me if I had been drinking. I said yes. He asked me where I had come from. I said I came from a friend's house - a friend's house, I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine with my friend and now I'm here. These are the keys to my apartment building, which is right there. And I am home and I want to go home, I'm tired. I had a long day.

* * *

Officer Ascione asked me, I think he asked me if I had ever been institutionalized or had a mental problem or was I - something to that effect and I - I - I felt absolutely terrified and very intimated from him and I got very upset.⁵ And I started to cry. And he took his handcuffs and slapped them on my wrists and threw me into the back of his vehicle and handcuffed me to the door so fast, it happened in the blink of the eye.

Corporal Ascione testified that, when he asked if she had relayed suicidal thoughts to Ms. Simonds, Ms. Clemens began to "break[] down in tears," which he took as an indication that "maybe [it] did happen." According to Officer Ascione, Ms. Clemens responded that "Bonnie Simon[d]s hasn't cared about her in years and then asks, you know, the rhetorical question of, why does she care now." Her response to his questionabout what she said to Ms. Simonds did not sound to him "like a statement that's made by somebody who has had an individual false report something about them":

So at this point I knew she needed to talk to somebody about this, whether it was, whether some sort of resource from the Department could be brought to bear or some, you know, if she'd be willing to go to the hospital on her own, you know, there are still options that are available.

But, when Ms. Clemens said she was going to her apartment and pushed him out of the way, he decided that "[t]ime [was] no longer on [his] side" and to take her into protective custody because "given the information [he] had at this point," he didn't think letting her into her apartment was "a viable option."⁶ He handcuffed her behind her back, placed her into his vehicle, and drove her to AAMC.⁷ She testified that, on the way to AAMC, she "screamed bloody murder."

At AAMC, Corporal Ascione prepared and signed a Petition for Emergency Evaluation stating that a previous petition had been filed and "granted" approximately "11 years ago." Ms. Clemens was released approximately eight hours later when hertreating physicians and medical support staff determined that there were insufficient grounds to further restrain her for additional testing and evaluation.

Additional facts will be included in our discussion of the questions presented.

I.Whether the Circuit Court Abused its Discretion in Denying Appellants' Motion toDismiss.

Ms. Clemens filed her complaint on August 19, 2016, and writs of summons were issued on August 22, 2016. As of December 20, 2016, no defendant had been served. On March 7, 2017, the circuit court issued a Md. Rule 2-507 notice of contemplated dismissal. Ms. Clemens moved to defer dismissal on April 6, 2017. In her motion, she stated that she had been "unable to obtain proper service prior to the expiration of the original summonses." But she now had additional address information for "certain Defendants," and expected new summonses to be served "during the week of April 10-15, 2017." On April 14, 2017, the circuit court deferred dismissal of her Complaint for four months.

The AAMC defendants filed an answer on June 2, 2017, and, although the appellants had not been served, the circuit court issued a Scheduling Order on June 22, 2017. On September 11, 2017, approximately three weeks after the four months provided in the April 14, 2017 order had passed, the appellants filed a motion to dismiss for insufficiency of service, arguing that Ms. Clemens had, without any "apparent or justified reason and without good cause" failed to serve the appellants for over thirteen monthsafter the filing of the complaint. Approximately four weeks later Ms. Clemens served the appellants on October 10, 2017.

The hearing on the motion to dismiss was held on December 19, 2017. The motion court expressed confusion as to why there had been a delay in getting a trial date when the complaint had been filed in August of 2016. Ms. Clemens's counsel explained it was "[b]ecause of service on the City" and its motion to dismiss. In addition, counsel stated that a settlement with AAMC had been negotiated, which they "had hoped would end the case in its totality." The court denied the motion to dismiss, finding that the appellants could not ...