Title: Armstrong v. Baltimore City

State: maryland

Issuer: Maryland Supreme Court

Document:

In the Circuit Court for Baltimore City
Case No. 24-C-04-003107
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
No. 30
September Term, 2005
______________________________________
DOUGLAS M. ARMSTRONG, ET AL.
v.
BALTIMORE CITY, MARYLAND
______________________________________
Bell, C.J.
Raker
Wilner
Cathell
Harrell
Battaglia
Greene,
   JJ.
______________________________________
Opinion by Wilner, J.
______________________________________
Filed:   January 6, 2006
This is a battle over a parking lot in the Charles Village area of Baltimore City.   The
parking lot is owned and operated by Cresmont Properties, the developer of a 26-unit
apartment building at 2807 Cresmont Avenue, to which the parking lot would be adjacent
and accessory.  Although clearly interested in the litigation, Cresmont is not a party to it.  The
parties are several residents who live in the area and oppose the parking lot (petitioners), and
the City, which has sided with the developer and authorized the lot (respondent).
The parking lot is in a parking lot district created by § 10-503 of the Baltimore City
Zoning Code.  At the times relevant in this case, § 10-504 of that Code prohibited land in
such a district from being used as a parking lot “unless authorized by an ordinance of the
Mayor and City Council.”  That prohibition was modified in December, 2004, when the City
amended the definition of “parking lot” in § 10-501 in a way that excluded accessory parking
lots from the ambit of the law.  Under the revised Code, an accessory parking lot may be
established without the need of an ordinance.
In order to comply with the then-existing requirement that even an accessory parking
lot in a parking lot district required an ordinance, Bill 03-1228 was introduced in October,
2003, and was enacted as Ord. No. 04-659 in March, 2004.  The ordinance granted
permission for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of a parking lot at 2807
Cresmont Avenue, as an accessory use to the 26-unit apartment structure, subject to two
stated conditions.   Petitioners, who had opposed the ordinance, filed a petition for judicial
review in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.  A separate petition alleging a violation of the
Open Meetings Act was filed the same day, and the two petitions were consolidated by the
1 There was once a Circuit Court of Baltimore City, which was one of six courts
comprising the Supreme Bench of Baltimore.  Those six courts were abolished in 1980,
when, by Constitutional Amendment, they were consolidated into the Circuit Court for
Baltimore City.  The version of § 2.09 in existence prior to its most recent revision in
2000 correctly referred to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.  It was in a 2000 rewriting
of the section (2000 Md. Laws, ch. 426) that the error, which we assume was purely
typographical, occurred.
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court.  In their petition for judicial review, petitioners complained about a number of
procedural deficiencies and irregularities accompanying the legislative process and also
alleged that the ordinance prevented petitioners from using adjacent garages for the storage
of automobiles and thereby effected an unlawful taking of their property.  
The petition for judicial review was filed pursuant to Maryland Code, Art. 66B, §
2.09(a)(ii), which provides that an “appeal” may be taken to the “Circuit Court of Baltimore
City” by any person aggrieved by “[a] zoning action by the City Council.”  We shall construe
the word “appeal,” as used in that section, as meaning an action for judicial review, as there
is no “appeal” from the action of a legislative body, whether acting in a legislative or
administrative capacity, and we shall construe the reference to the “Circuit Court of
Baltimore City” to mean the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, as there is no court known as
the Circuit Court of Baltimore City. 1  These corrective interpretations are non-substantive.
Section 2.09(a)(2) requires the petitioner to comply with title 7, ch. 200 of the Maryland
Rules, which govern actions for judicial review from administrative agencies.
The City moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the challenged ordinance
did not constitute a “zoning action” under § 2.09 and that, as a result, there was no right to
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seek judicial review.  Relying principally on Board v. Stephans, 286 Md. 384, 408 A.2d 1017
(1979), the City viewed the term “zoning action” as limited to a reclassification of property,
which Ord. No. 04-659, in its view, did not achieve.  The property in question, the City
noted, was in a B-3 zoning district prior to the ordinance and it remained in such a district
after enactment of the ordinance.  Nor, the City added, could the action be brought under title
7, ch. 200 of the Maryland Rules, which merely provide the procedure to be followed when
an action for judicial review is authorized by statute.
After hearing argument on the City’s motion, the court, on August 13, 2004, and “for
the reasons enumerated on the record,” granted the motion and dismissed the “appeal.”  Five
days later, the court denied petitioners’ motion to alter or amend its judgment, whereupon
petitioners noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals.  In the Information Report filed
pursuant to Maryland Rule 8-205, petitioners listed as the issues whether Ord. 04-659
constituted a legislative authorization of a conditional use and whether petitioners were
entitled to judicial review of that ordinance.  
In January, 2005, the City moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that “[t]he
appeal is not statutorily prescribed by either the Maryland Rules or Maryland Ann. Code, Art.
66B, § 2.09,” and that the Court of Special Appeals therefore “lacks jurisdiction to entertain
this appeal.”  In an accompanying memorandum, it repeated the argument presented to the
Circuit Court – that §2.09 permits judicial review only from a reclassification and that the
challenged ordinance did not effect a reclassification.  It added that, as a result, the appellate
2A week before the motion to dismiss was filed by the City, petitioners filed a
motion in the appellate court to transmit the record without a transcript.  Maryland Rule
8-413 requires the record on appeal to contain the transcript required by Rule 8-411. Rule
8-411 requires the appellant to order a transcription of any proceeding relevant to the
appeal and to cause that transcript to be filed with the clerk for inclusion in the record. 
Although there was apparently no testimony taken in the Circuit Court, the court’s
judgment, as noted, was based on “the reasons enumerated in the record.”  It was
therefore necessary for petitioners to ensure that the record included the transcript of the
hearing on the City’s motion, at which the court presumably announced its reasons for
granting the motion.  The problem was that, after making inquiries of the court reporter,
petitioners were eventually informed that the court reporter had lost her notes and that it
was impossible to produce a transcript.  Rule 8-412(a) requires the record to be filed
within 60 days after entry of an order to proceed under Rule 8-206(a).  Petitioners were
not informed about the lost notes until January 18 – the very day they filed their motion. 
In order to avoid a dismissal of the appeal for failure to produce the record timely, it was
necessary for petitioners to deal with the court’s inability to produce a transcript.  See
Maryland Rule 8-602(a)(5), permitting the appellate court to dismiss an appeal if the
record was not transmitted within the time prescribed by Rule 8-412, unless the court
finds that the failure was caused by the act or omission of certain court personnel,
including the court stenographer.  The Court of Special Appeals never acted on
petitioners’ motion.   
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court had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal.  Petitioners did not respond to the motion
to dismiss.  They were more concerned with getting the record to the appellate court.2  On
March 14, 2005, the court granted the City’s motion and dismissed the appeal pursuant to
Maryland Rule 8-602(a)(1) (appeal not allowed by law).
Maryland Code, § 12-301 of the Cts. & Jud. Proc. Article provides that, except as
provided in § 12-302 of that article, a party may appeal from a final judgment entered in a
civil or criminal case by a circuit court.  The right of appeal exists whether the judgment is
entered in the exercise of the court’s original, special, limited, or statutory jurisdiction,
unless, in a particular case, the right of appeal is expressly denied by law.  Section 12-302(a)
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contains an exception to that broad right of appeal which, itself, is subject to an exception.
It provides, in relevant part, that “[u]nless a right to appeal is expressly granted by law, § 12-
301 does not permit an appeal from a final judgment of a court entered or made in the
exercise of appellate jurisdiction in reviewing the decision of . . . a local legislative body.”
In Department v. Harmans, 98 Md. App. 535, 542, n. 2, 633 A.2d 939, 943, n.2, the
Court of Special Appeals pointed out that the reference to “appellate jurisdiction” in § 12-
302(a) was a misnomer when applied to review of decisions of administrative and legislative
bodies.  The court noted that “[t]rue appellate jurisdiction is exercised only when a court
reviews the orders or judgments of a lower court” and that “[a]ctions to review the conduct
and orders of Executive or Legislative bodies are in the nature of original actions, either
under extraordinary common law or equity writs or upon statutory authority.”  Id.    The
Court of Special Appeals noted, however, that, until the misnomer was corrected with the
adoption of the title 7, chapter 200 Rules in 1993, it was common for statutes, rules, and
courts to speak of those kinds of proceedings as administrative “appeals,” as, indeed, § 2.09
continues to do.  The court concluded that, in crafting § 12-302, the Legislature intended for
the exception to apply to that kind of judicial review, and so, when dealing with an action for
judicial review of an administrative or legislative body, it is necessary to search beyond § 12-
301 for authority to appeal the decision of the circuit court.  Those principles were confirmed
by this Court in Gisriel v. Ocean City Elections Board, 345 Md. 477, 493-96, 693 A.2d 757,
765-67 (1997).
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In searching for the right to appeal the Circuit Court’s decision in this case, we need
look no further than § 2.09 itself.  Subsection (e) of that section provides that “[a]ny decision
of the Circuit Court [for] Baltimore City may be appealed to the Court of Special Appeals.”
It does not matter whether the Circuit Court did or did not have jurisdiction to entertain the
judicial review action, whether it was right or wrong in its ruling.  That is what the appeal
is to resolve.  So long as the Circuit Court entered a final or otherwise appealable judgment,
which it did, an appeal will lie.  In this Court, the City argues that the dismissal of the appeal
was correct because petitioners failed to respond to the City’s motion.  Such an argument is
entirely without merit.  We are aware of no rule, or ruling, that would allow the Court of
Special Appeals to dismiss an appeal properly before it simply because the appellant fails to
respond to a non-meritorious motion to dismiss.  The dismissal was erroneous; the Court of
Special Appeals clearly had jurisdiction to consider the appeal.
ORDER 
OF 
COURT 
OF 
SPECIAL 
APPEALS
DISMISSING APPEAL REVERSED; CASE REMANDED
TO THAT COURT FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS;
COSTS IN THIS COURT TO BE PAID BY MAYOR AND
CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.