Case Title: ACandS, Inc. v. Asner

Citation: 

Docket Number: 92/95

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 1996-10-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
Circuit Court for Baltimore  
City Case #93194701
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
No. 92
September Term, 1995
ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
____________________________________
ACandS, INC. et al.
v.
IDA SARA MASKET ASNER
et al.
____________________________________
    *Murphy, C.J.
Eldridge
Rodowsky
Chasanow
Karwacki
Bell
Raker, 
JJ. 
____________________________________
Opinion by Rodowsky, J.
____________________________________
Filed:  December 6, 1996
*Murphy, 
C.J., 
now 
retired,
participated 
in 
the 
hearing 
and
conference of this case while an
active member of this Court; after
being 
recalled 
pursuant 
to 
the
Constitution, Article IV, Section 3A,
he also participated in the decision
and the adoption of this opinion.
The plaintiffs have moved for reconsideration of Part I.B of
this CourtUs opinion in which we held that the erroneous exclusion
of TLV evidence by the trial court was prejudicial to the
defendants.  That ruling resulted in a remand for a new trial on
the issue of liability for compensatory damages.  In their motion
plaintiffs submit that "additional evidence was admitted during the
cross-claim portion of the trial, which, by any measure, satisfied
the proffers of proof made by the defendants on [the issue of
TLVs]."  AppelleesU Motion for Reconsideration at 3.  We deny the
motion because the evidence now relied upon by the plaintiffs in
their motion was not referred to by the plaintiffs in their brief
as appellees and also because a limiting instruction, to which no
one objected, prevented the jury from considering that evidence on
the claim of the plaintiffs against the defendants.
The additional evidence on which the plaintiffs now rely is
found in the deposition testimony of Willis Hazard and of Dr.
Garrit Schepers.  Excerpts from the Hazard and the Schepers
depositions were read to the jury on November 29, 1993, the twelfth
day of trial, as part of the respective defendantsU cases as cross-
claimants against certain cross-claim defendants.  
In their brief as appellees plaintiffs did not refer us to the
Hazard or the Schepers depositions.  That brief argued that, even
if the trial court erred in its ruling granting the plaintiffsU
motion in limine excluding TLV evidence that was proffered by the
defendants, the error was not prejudicial because other evidence
-2-
which the jury could consider on the claim of the plaintiffs
against the defendants substantially covered that which the
defendants had proffered.  That material came into evidence
principally on the cross-examination of one or more plaintiffsU
witnesses during plaintiffsU case in chief.  We rejected this
argument in our original opinion based on a comparison of the
defendantsU proffers to the evidence to which we were referred by
the appelleesU brief. 
Neither deposition was made part of the five volume, 2,437
page, joint record extract.  All references in AppelleesU Motion for
Reconsideration to testimony in the depositions are references to
the original trial transcript.  
Maryland Rule 8-501(c) requires that the record extract
"contain all parts of the record that are reasonably necessary for
the determination of the questions presented by the appeal ...."
Rule 8-504(a)(4), dealing with statements of facts in an appellantUs
and in an appelleeUs brief, provides that "[r]eference shall be made
to the pages of the record extract supporting the assertions."  
Two 
liberalizations 
were 
made 
in 
these 
longstanding
requirements by the revision of Title 8 of the Maryland Rules that
became effective July 1, 1988.  One liberalization is the deferred
record extract.  Rule 8-501(l).  A deferred record extract would
have been of little assistance to the problem at hand.  Inasmuch as
references to the two depositions were not included in the
appelleesU brief, deferral of the preparation of the record extract
-3-
in order to include all that was included in a partyUs brief would
not have picked up the two depositions in the instant matter.  
The second liberalization is in Rule 8-501(c), dealing with
contents of the record extract.  That rule now includes the
following concluding sentence:  "The fact that a part of the record
is not included in the record extract shall not preclude a party
from relying on it or the appellate court from considering it." 
Obviously, the new provision is not to be abused.  Compare
Naughton v. Paul Jones & Co., 190 Md. 599, 604, 59 A.2d 496, 498
(1948) (disregard of Maryland rule requiring appendix to appellantUs
brief to contain all parts of the record party desires Court to
read may result in dismissal of an appeal); Butler v. Reed-Avery
Co., 186 Md. 686, 689-90, 48 A.2d 436, 438 (1946) (rules requiring
litigantUs brief to contain an index which must include those parts
of the record desired to be read by the Court are "plain, concise,
and should be easily understood.  They provide a means for each
side to get before this [C]ourt all the evidence that it is desired
to be read by the [C]ourt.  When the appellant disregards or
violates these rules his case may be dismissed on motion, or by
this [C]ourt on its own motion."); Condry v. Laurie, 186 Md. 194,
197, 46 A.2d 196, 197 (1946) (when the appendix to a partyUs brief
contains nothing other than the opinion and decree of the lower
court the Court will look no further than the opinion and the
decree to make its decision); Strohecker v. Schumacher & Seiler,
-4-
     By way of contrast, in ACandS v. Godwin, 340 Md. 334, 667
1
A.2d 116 (1995), the factual material that formed the basis for the
reconsideration had been referred to in the brief entitled, "Brief
of Appellees on Consolidated General Issues and On Consolidated
Punitive Damage Issues and Brief of Cross-Appellants."
Inc., 185 Md. 144, 146-47, 43 A.2d 208, 209 (1945) ("[W]e do not
intend to pass the one typewritten copy of the record from member
to member of this Court so that each one may hunt up for himself
what the appellant is discussing in his brief.  ... [W]e do not
intend to permit counsel to impose upon us the burden of work,
which should have been done by them.").
The last sentence of Rule 8-501(c) is of no assistance to the
plaintiffs on their Motion for Reconsideration.  The provision does
"not preclude a party from relying" in that partyUs brief on the
matter omitted from the record extract.  The liberalizing provision
relating to record extracts in Rule 8-501(c) does not excuse the
failure to furnish in the brief references to factual material in
support of a partyUs argument as required by Rule 8-504(a)(4).   Nor
1
does the liberalization in Rule 8-501(c) alter the fundamental rule
of appellate practice under which the appellate court has no duty
independently to search through the record for error.  See State
Roads CommUn v. Halle, 228 Md. 24, 32, 178 A.2d 319, 323 (1962); Van
Meter v. State, 30 Md. App. 406, 407-08, 352 A.2d 850, 851-52
(1976); GAI Audio of New York, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting Sys.,
Inc., 27 Md. App. 172, 182-83, 340 A.2d 736, 743-44 (1975).  Thus,
the Court of Special Appeals has appropriately held that a party
-5-
may lose the right to appeal on an issue by failing to indicate in
that partyUs brief the location in the record where the alleged
error occurred.  Mitchell v. State, 51 Md. App. 347, 357-58, 443
A.2d 651, 657, cert. denied, 459 U.S. 915, 103 S. Ct. 227, 74 L.
Ed. 2d 180 (1982).  The same principle applies to the alleged cure
of an error.
The second reason for our denial of the Motion for
Reconsideration is that, under the instructions of the trial court,
the jury could not consider either of the depositions.  Indeed, it
may have been because of the limiting instruction that plaintiffs
did not include reference to those depositions in their brief as
appellees.  We describe below how the instruction evolved.
On the eleventh trial day, November 24, 1993, after plaintiffs
had introduced their case in chief, the defendants were producing
evidence in support of their cross-claims.  Counsel for the
plaintiffs, referring specifically to the anticipated introduction
by Porter Hayden Company, Inc. (PH) of excerpts from the deposition
of Dr. Schepers in support of PHUs cross-claim against Owens-
Illinois, Inc. (O-I), pointed out to the court, out of the presence
of the jury, that a number of passages designated from the
deposition dealt with TLVs.  Plaintiffs complained that they had
presented their case in chief in reliance on the motion in limine
ruling under which TLVs were not an issue, and plaintiffs submitted
that injection into the case of TLV evidence "brings a whole new
-6-
     
"THE COURT:
...
2
"... [W]hen evidence is admitted in particular
matters against particular individuals or companies, that
evidence may only be considered as to that company and
may not be considered for any other purpose.
"I have mentioned that to you before, but I wanted
to remention that to you so that there is no crossover of
your consideration of evidence against one party against
another party.
"Do you understand that?
"THE JURY:
Yes.
"THE COURT:
Okay.  Keep that in mind at all times
during the course of the trial.
"At certain times, you have heard that the evidence
is being offered against party A, for example.
"Well, that evidence that was admitted against party
A can only be considered by you in your deliberations
against party A.
"You have heard party A and B, for example, using
just those generic designations say, Uwe adopt,U or party
B will say Uwe adopt what party A is offering.U
"Then you may consider that evidence in favor of
(continued...)
ball game up ...."  The court resolved the matter by saying: "I
intend to tell the jury that that evidence is only as to the cross-
claim and can only be considered as to the cross-claim; it canUt be
considered as to anything else."  Plaintiffs reasserted their
objections to the designations.  After the jury was brought back
into the courtroom, the trial court gave an instruction consistent
with what it had indicated it would do.  The text of the
instruction is set forth in the margin.   Due to the intervening
2
-7-
     (...continued)
2
both of those and against only the individuals or
corporations that it is being offered against, and not
for any other purpose.
"Is that clear?
"THE JURY:
Yes."
Thanksgiving holiday the next trial day was Monday, November 29,
when excerpts from the two depositions were read to the jury.  At
that time, and thereafter, any defendant adopting one or the other
or both depositions as part of that defendantUs case as a cross-
claimant so stated to the jury, and the adopting defendant
identified to the jury the specific cross-claim defendant against
which the evidence was offered.  
Under the limiting instruction the jury was not permitted to
consider the depositions of Hazard and of Dr. Schepers as evidence
bearing on the original claim of the plaintiffs against the
defendants.  Consequently, the deposition evidence did not render
non-prejudicial to the defendants the erroneous ruling on the
motion in limine. 
For these reasons AppelleesU Motion for Reconsideration is
denied.