Monique Williams v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City 

No. 3095, Sept. Term, 2018

Opinion by Leahy, J.

Municipal Corporations > Negligence > Notice

The “mere fact that [a] municipality knows” of a defective hydrant “does not ordinarily 

include notice of a particular danger at any point”; rather, “there must be actual or 

constructive notice of [a] particular defect or obstruction.” See Weisner v. Mayor and 

Council of Rockville, 245 Md. 225, 229 (1967) (citing 19 McQuillin, Municipal 

Corporations, § 54.114 (3d ed. 1950)). 

Municipal Corporations > Negligence > Notice

The law imputes constructive notice based on the circumstances of a particular case. City 

of Annapolis v. Stallings, 125 Md. 343, 347 (1915) (citation omitted).

Municipal Corporations > Negligence > Summary Judgment 

The circuit court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the municipality 

where the plaintiff failed to produce sufficient evidence that a leaking hydrant created a 

dangerous roadway condition that caused her accident, even though the plaintiff did 

provide evidence that the hydrant itself was defective. 
Circuit Court for Baltimore City

Case No. 24-C-17-004488

REPORTED

IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS

OF MARYLAND

No. 3095

September Term, 2018

MONIQUE WILLIAMS

v.

MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF 

BALTIMORE CITY

Leahy,

Wells, 

Sharer, J. Frederick

 (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned),

 

JJ.

Opinion by Leahy, J.

Filed: April 7, 2020
In the early morning on November 25, 2015, Monique Williams, appellant, applied 

her brakes as another car pulled in front of hers on Franklin Square Drive. At that moment, 

her vehicle began to sway and then slid in a circular motion before landing on its side. Ms. 

Williams remained in the flipped vehicle until paramedics arrived to remove her. 

Subsequently, the paramedics transported Ms. Williams to Franklin Square Hospital where 

she was treated for multiple injuries. 

In 2017, Ms. Williams filed a complaint alleging two counts of negligence in the 

Circuit Court for Baltimore City, naming the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City 

(the “City”) as one of the defendants. In her complaint, Ms. Williams alleged that she lost 

control of her vehicle and sustained personal injury because a fire hydrant, for which the 

City was responsible, was leaking water and created a dangerous condition on Franklin 

Square Drive. On a motion for summary judgment filed by the City, the circuit court ruled 

that, although the City had notice of the defective condition of the hydrant, the City was 

entitled to summary judgment because Ms. Williams failed to meet her burden to show that 

“water or ice or some other defect in the roadway was the cause” of her accident. 

Ms. Williams timely noted her appeal from the court’s grant of summary judgment 

in favor of the City. She presents one question for our review: 

“Did the trial court err in granting Baltimore City’s Motion for Summary 

Judgment on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to establish that 

the dangerous condition was a cause of Ms. Williams’[s] accident?”

For the reasons that follow, we hold that the trial court did not err in granting summary 

judgment in favor of the City. 
2

BACKGROUND

The Leaky Hydrant

During the fall of 2015, the City received notice of a leaking fire hydrant on Franklin 

Square Drive near the intersection with King Avenue.

1

 A work order dated October 30, 

2015 indicates that a Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) employee

investigated the location and referred the hydrant to the maintenance department to have 

the hydrant “overhauled.” As explained by Gary Billups, a utility investigator for DPW 

who was deposed by Ms. Williams’s counsel, “overhaul” means to “put in a new hydrant 

because that one is not functioning right.” The October work order had a priority of 

“medium.” Jammie Booker, a supervisor with DPW who was also deposed, articulated the 

meaning of “medium priority”:

It means something is broken and needs attention, but it’s not – I would say 

it wouldn’t be, like, extreme but when you get a high priority job, I guess 

that’s when it’s a broken main, and people are not getting water. Any time 

water is not being distributed to the consumer or a hydrant not there to put 

out a fire, those are high priority jobs. Public safety. 

On November 2, 2015, the City logged a citizen service request for a “water break” 

“at the intersection of king avenue and franklin square drive.” The citizen indicated that 

the water was coming from the “Street” and the water flow was “Heavy.” A responding 

DPW employee observed a “leaking hydrant” at the location. On November 17, 2015, the 

 

1 The portion of Franklin Square Drive where the accident occurred is located in 

Baltimore County. However, Baltimore City is responsible for water service at that 

location and the fire hydrant in question was the City’s responsibility. See Department of 

Public Works, BALT. CTY. GOV’T, https://www.baltimorecountymd.gov/Agencies/

publicworks/index.html (last visited Feb. 13, 2020). 
3

City received another citizen service request, which stated “Hydrant is on Franklin Square 

Dr (on NW side of Rd), NE of King Ave. Looks like it may have been recently replaced, 

it is leaking all over the road.” A DPW employee arrived the next day, November 18, and 

observed that “there were no leaks, no noise.” The employee “[g]reased the operating nut” 

and noted “[c]lean-lines.” Both the work order from October 30 and the service request 

from November 2 were marked as “Closed” to reflect that the work had been performed. 

On November 19, the City received a citizen service request identical to the request from 

November 17. That same day, both were marked as “Duplicate (closed)” which, Mr. 

Billups explained, indicates that a request was for “the same location, and someone had 

been there, and then closed it out” after performing the work. 

Another citizen service request for a leaking hydrant at the location “between 

Franklin [S]quare Dr & Baltistan Ct & [K]ing [A]ve” was logged on November 23, 2015. 

Mr. Billups responded the next day, November 24, and noted “There is a leaking valve at 

this location – making medium water – no damage.” Mr. Billups explained that “medium 

water” means “[i]t’s not a real heavy flow of water. It’s just barely coming out of the street 

or either the valve.” In response to a question about whether medium water “would refer 

to water that you could see with your naked eye on the street,” Mr. Billups indicated that, 

although not a heavy flow, it was a “constant flow” of water. Mr. Billups defined “no 

damage” as “[n]o damage done to the street[.]” He further stated that his job duty after 

observing “medium water” and “no damage” would be to “call and report it to the valve 

truck.”
4

During his deposition almost three years later, Mr. Billups testified that he did not 

remember responding on November 24, 2015 (the day before Ms. Williams’s accident), 

but that, based on the Service Request Summary Report, he knew he went to the location 

for a leaking valve. According to Mr. Billups, if he had noticed that the “medium water” 

had created an icy condition on the road, he “would [have] let [dispatch] know it was an 

icy condition that needed immediate response” and “put cones out.” Because the report 

did not indicate the presence of an icy condition, Mr. Billups testified, it was correct to say 

that the leak was not creating an icy condition on that date.

At her deposition, Ms. Williams testified that she had seen water coming out of the 

hydrant “periodically”—“more than once” as she drove to and from work. She explained:

This problem with the hydrant was on and off for a while. Sometimes you 

would see water. Sometimes you would not see water. Maybe within a 

month or so, maybe sometime in October, sometime in November. So I don’t 

really have exact dates.

With regard to the water coming out of the hydrant, she stated, “It wasn’t a little leak. It 

was enough where I could visibly see. While I’m driving, I can see water coming out of 

it.” Although she “felt like [the hydrant] should be fixed,” Ms. Williams “never called 

anyone to see about getting it fixed.” She emphasized that “[i]t wasn’t every single day”; 

rather, “it was periodically.” 

The Accident

Sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. on November 25, 2015, the Wednesday 

before Thanksgiving, Ms. Williams drove her 2003 Chevy Trailblazer to Sam’s Club to 

pick up peanut oil for the turkey she planned to cook the next day. The weather, as Ms. 
5

Williams recalled, was that of “a regular November day”: “It was kind of early in the 

morning. There was no sun out. It was cold. I know it was cold, because I had a cloak.” 

She did not “recall it being windy” that morning. Though there were two routes she could 

take for the ten-minute drive to Sam’s Club, Ms. Williams chose to go down Franklin 

Square Drive, which has two lanes in each direction. The road was clear, and Ms. Williams 

did not remember seeing any traffic or encountering any problems on her way. She also 

did not see any crews working on the street at that time. After shopping for around 30 

minutes, she left Sam’s Club, again taking the Franklin Square Drive route. As Ms. 

Williams approached the turn to her neighborhood, she was in the far-right lane, with the 

hydrant near the King Avenue intersection three lanes to her left. 

Ms. Williams recalled that, when she was “no more than two minutes” away from 

home, another car got over in front of her. She had been driving “anywhere from 30 to 35 

miles per hour,” about the speed limit on Franklin Square Drive. Although the car did not 

cut her off, she “made sure [she] applied brakes to have appropriate spacing, so [she] 

wouldn’t hit them.” Ms. Williams did not see any brake lights or notice the car skid or 

slide as it moved in front of her. Then, maybe a “few seconds” after she applied her brakes, 

Ms. Williams “just started experiencing sliding.” Ms. Williams explained: 

When I was experiencing the sliding, I just felt the [Trailblazer] start 

to sway and it hit me, like, Oh, man, this is ice. 

So I know that my father has taught me, you’re on ice, you don’t want 

to hit your brakes anymore because it can go out of control. So I’m just 

trying to steer my way to make sure that I don’t have an accident.

At that time – it all happened really fast – the car began to go in a 

circle, a turning type of motion. It just turned. When it hit the sidewalk, it 

kind of flipped over. It jumbled. The big thing is I just remember the car 
6

swaying. I remember feeling like I was going in some type of circular motion 

or something and hitting the curb, and everything else is kind of a blur. 

(Emphasis added). 

At her deposition, Ms. Williams could not recall if there was another car next to her, 

what speed she had slowed down to, or whether she was turning the steering wheel. She 

did remember that she did not take her hands off the wheel, and that she was not “pumping 

the brakes[.]” She testified as to her thoughts at the time her car was sliding: “It must be 

something like ice or something on the road, because you wouldn’t do this normally when 

you’re driving and apply your brakes. I’ve never experienced that before.” According to 

Ms. Williams, from the time she left Sam’s Club until the time of her accident, she was 

watching the road and “did not see anything on the road.” 

Ms. Williams called 911 from her flipped vehicle and paramedics arrived to remove 

her. Although she had no problems answering the paramedics’ questions, she noted at her 

deposition that she was unsure whether she was conscious the entire time: 

That part is a little unclear to me because it took a while for the fire 

department to come and the paramedics to come, the reason being, there was 

another incident with the ice. Someone had slipped. They apologized for 

taking a long time.

So when they came, they just talked to me a little bit. They were 

familiar about some of the icy patches that were going on there, because they 

had an issue earlier.

The paramedics transported Ms. Williams to Franklin Square Hospital, where she was 

treated for multiple injuries before being released in the evening. 

The City responded to the faulty hydrant again on November 25, 2015. A DPW 

employee noted that there was “a split on the lead line creating a broken main.” Ms. 
7

Williams saw the crews working on the hydrant from the car on her way back from the 

hospital. 

Ms. Williams’s Complaint

On August 25, 2017, Ms. Williams filed her complaint, alleging one count of 

negligence against the City.

2

 The complaint stated that Ms. Williams’s vehicle spun out of 

control due to “water and black ice which had formed . . . due to a suspected water main 

break” on Franklin Square Drive near the intersection with Baltistan Court. Ms. Williams 

asserted that the City has a duty to “keep its public streets in repair and to give adequate 

warnings if it knew or should have known of any defective or unsafe conditions that have 

not been repaired yet.” The City breached its duty, Ms. Williams continued, by “initiating 

but failing to reasonably and completely complete the water repair work” and by “not 

providing adequate and reasonable warnings to the public of the dangerous and unsafe 

condition of the roadway, that it knew or should have known existed[.]” Ms. Williams 

further alleged that, as a result of the City’s negligence, “a vehicle collision caused by the 

water and black ice without any warning signs was a foreseeable result.” 

The City’s Motion for Summary Judgment

The City filed a motion for summary judgment on September 18, 2018, almost a 

month after the close of discovery. The City argued that “no dangerous or hazardous 

 

2 The second count of the complaint alleged negligence against Baltimore County. 

On a motion for summary judgment filed by the County, the court determined that there 

was insufficient evidence to establish that Baltimore County had notice of the defective 

condition on the roadway because the fire hydrant was the responsibility of Baltimore City. 

Thus, the circuit court granted the County’s motion, and Ms. Williams does not challenge 

the court’s decision on appeal.
8

condition was present in the roadway of Franklin Square Drive due to a fire hydrant 

expelling water onto the roadway on the morning of Nov. 25, 2015.” In support, the City 

referred to Ms. Williams’s deposition testimony that she didn’t see “any stream” or ice in 

front of her as she approached the location of the accident, and that the vehicle driving 

ahead of her did not encounter any condition. The City further contended that it lacked 

notice of water or ice on the roadway on the morning in question, and that a municipality 

must have actual or constructive pre-injury notice of the existence of a hazard in order to 

be held liable by an injured individual. According to the City, it was entitled to judgment 

as a matter of law due to the lack of evidence of negligence on its part and evidence of 

notice of the fire hydrant expelling water on November 25, 2015. 

Ms. Williams filed a memorandum in opposition to the City’s motion for summary 

judgment and a statement of material facts in dispute. In her memorandum, she requested 

that three inferences be made in her favor: (1) that the City “never performed reasonable 

and adequate repair of the leaking fire hydrant”; (2) that the “water running into the street 

the day before [her] accident was never turned off or remedied prior to her vehicle losing 

control and rolling over the next morning”; and (3) that “whether or not other vehicles 

encountered problems is not relevant absent a showing that the other vehicles also applied 

their brakes while crossing over the roadway in question.” Ms. Williams also pointed to 

“three major genuine disputes as to [] material facts”: 

whether there are adequate facts to support [a] finding that (1) Baltimore City 

had notice of the leaking fire hydrant, (2) whether it responded in a 

reasonable manner in repairing or warning of the dangerous condition[,] and 

(3) whether the Plaintiff could and should have seen the water and ice in the 

roadway.
9

Ms. Williams included in her statement, as additional material facts in dispute, “[w]hether 

a reasonable person under the circumstances would have seen the water and ice on the 

roadway” and “[w]hether the vehicle immediately in front of the Plaintiff’s vehicle would 

or should have lost control.” 

Ms. Williams asserted that the City had notice because it received several 

complaints about a leaking hydrant, including a complaint from the day before her accident, 

in response to which Mr. Billups went to the scene and observed “medium water.” She 

also argued that whether or not she “could or should have observed water or ice in the 

roadway in the early morning of November 25, 2015, is a material fact in dispute that must 

be left for a jury to decide.” Accordingly, she concluded that summary judgment was not 

appropriate because “sufficient facts and favorable inferences exist[] to support a jury 

finding that [the] City had notice of the leaking hydrant, failed to take appropriate remedial 

action and that the water and ice in the roadway was a proximate cause of [her] injuries.”

The court held a hearing on the City’s motion on October 24, 2018. Counsel for the 

City argued that Ms. Williams was “in the best condition to speak to the state of the 

roadway,” yet she testified “clearly that on the way back, on the way there, she doesn’t see 

anything in the roadway.” Further, counsel contended, the record was “devoid of any 

evidence to substantiate a hazardous or dangerous condition that the City would be 

responsible for.” According to counsel, it was “very illustrative” that another vehicle that 

moved “from the left lane to directly in front of [Ms. Williams] in the far right lane, so it 
10

was as far as possible from the hydrant[,] . . . encountered no difficulty in traveling down 

the roadway.” 

Though “not, in and of itself, positing contributory negligence,” counsel told the 

court, “[w]e can’t exclude that Ms. Williams could have done anything to contribute to the 

accident.” Res ipsa was also inapplicable, the City argued, because, inter alia, the City did 

not have exclusive control over the hydrant, and there was a lack of evidence that “anything 

regarding the hydrant was in fact the cause of the accident.” Lastly, counsel argued that 

the City did not have the requisite pre-injury notice to be held liable, as “time is the most 

crucial aspect of constructive notice” but there was no evidence of how long any hazard 

had existed.

In turn, Ms. Williams’s counsel referred to the multiple complaints filed by citizens 

and asserted that the November 24, 2015 report stated “there was medium water in the 

street” to support her argument that the City had notice. Counsel told the court, “[U]nder 

a summary judgment, where we’re at right now, I believe the Court has to take the view 

favorable to the Plaintiff. That the water wasn’t shut off the night before. A clear record 

that the City knew that there was a water issue.” 

The court noted that Ms. Williams’s arguments went only to notice and whether the 

City had a duty: 

What’s the evidence of causation? That’s the piece I’m missing. That it was 

some type of water or ice in the roadway that caused this accident. Because 

when I read [Ms. Williams’s] deposition, she said she didn’t see anything. 

So how do we even know that this was the cause of the accident? What’s the 

evidence in the record of that?

Ms. Williams’s counsel responded, 
11

The evidence in the record would be right where her vehicle lost 

control was right where the hydrant and the water issues were. . . . And 

immediately when she tapped her brakes, that’s when she lost control of the 

vehicle. 

So that raises an inference that she lost control of her vehicle because 

of the water and ice on the roadway. 

Counsel offered to supplement the summary judgment record with the police report which 

“put[] that there [wa]s black ice on the scene,” and told the court that Ms. Williams planned 

to “bring at trial people who arrived on the scene” to testify about the temperature and icy 

condition. Because the City “was clearly on notice,” counsel concluded, “[w]hether or not 

this dangerous condition caused or contributed 100 percent to Ms. Williams’[s] accident” 

should be left to the jury to decide. 

In rebuttal, the City asserted that Ms. Williams “had every opportunity to fill the 

record with anything, with witnesses, that would have provided additional testimony” but 

did not procure testimony about ice or water at the scene. Counsel for the City contended 

that the record was “devoid of any causal connection and any actual evidence, testimony, 

or documentary record within this case that there was anything occurring with the fire 

hydrant on that morning that would have resulted in an accident.”3 

The Court’s Decision 

At the close of the hearing, the court decided to take the City’s motion for summary 

judgment under advisement. The court declined to take a position on Ms. Williams’s 

request to supplement the record and told counsel, “if that’s what you wish to do, then 

 

3 The City clarified for the court that the scheduling order had been modified and 

the parties engaged in additional fact discovery before the extended discovery deadline of 

August 27, 2018. 
12

you’ll have to file a motion.” However, Ms. Williams’s counsel did not file any motion or 

otherwise supplement the record.

Two weeks later, on November 8, 2018, the court granted the City’s motion for 

summary judgment in a written order. The court noted that the “record reveals that the 

City had actual notice of the defective condition of the fire hydrant.” The inquiry did not 

end there, the court continued, as a “municipality will only be held liable where plaintiff 

can establish that it had actual or constructive notice of the bad condition that caused the 

damage.” The court reviewed Ms. Williams’s and Mr. Billups’s testimony and concluded 

that “[t]here is simply insufficient evidence to establish that water or ice or some other 

defect in the roadway was the cause of the motor vehicle accident involving Ms. Williams 

on November 25, 2015.”

Ms. Williams timely noted her appeal from the court’s grant of summary judgment

on December 7, 2018. We will include additional details in the discussion below.

DISCUSSION

Ms. Williams argues before this Court that the trial court erred in granting summary 

judgment for four reasons. First, she contends, the court “ignored and never addressed 

whether it found or did not find that material facts in genuine dispute exist” so the 

memorandum order, “on its face, fails to satisfy the requirements necessary for a trial court 

to grant a [m]otion for [s]ummary [j]udgment and is legally incorrect.” Second, Ms. 

Williams asserts that material facts in genuine dispute did exist. Third, according to Ms. 

Williams, the court was required to draw inferences of fact in her favor yet, “in finding that 

insufficient evidence of a dangerous condition existed, had to lean and favor the []moving 
13

party Baltimore City to get to that conclusion.” Finally, Ms. Williams contends that she 

“provided sufficient evidence at this stage in the case that a reasonable jury may find that 

the water running across the roadway may have been a proximate cause of her vehicle 

losing control.” (Emphasis omitted). 

The City responds that the trial court correctly granted its motion for summary 

judgment because Ms. Williams “produced no evidence that ice or water from the fire 

hydrant caused her accident” and “failed to provide evidence sufficient to show that the 

City had prior notice of the alleged hazard that allegedly caused the accident – the ice on 

the road[.]” 

Standard of Review

A circuit court may grant a motion for summary judgment “if the motion and 

response show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact” and the moving 

party “is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Md. Rule 2-501(f). “We review a circuit 

court’s decision to grant summary judgment without deference, by independently 

examining the record to determine whether the parties generated a genuine dispute of 

material fact and, if not, whether the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of 

law.” Colbert v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 235 Md. App. 581, 587 (2018). In 

doing so, “[w]e review the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and 

construe any reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the facts against the moving 

party.” Kennedy Krieger Inst., Inc. v. Partlow, 460 Md. 607, 632-33 (2018) (citation 

omitted). “[O]rdinarily, an appellate court will review a grant of summary judgment only 
14

upon the grounds relied upon by the trial court.” Hamilton v. Kirson, 439 Md. 501, 523 

(2014) (citation omitted).

I.

No Genuine Dispute of Material Fact

Ms. Williams contends that “material facts in genuine dispute exist[,]” as the 

“parties genuinely dispute whether Baltimore City had notice of the dangerous condition.” 

She further asserts that “[w]hether Baltimore City had notice of the leaking hydrant is a 

factual determination which should be left to a jury to decide.” The City “does not dispute 

that it had actual notice of an intermittently leaking hydrant prior to the accident.” 

Accordingly, the circuit court properly determined that no factual dispute existed with 

regard to notice of the defective hydrant. Because the City posits that it “received no notice 

until after the accident” of the “hazard that allegedly caused the accident”—the 

“unreasonably slippery road conditions” and not the leaking hydrant—we must determine 

whether the circuit court erred in finding that there was no dispute of material fact as to 

whether the City had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous roadway condition. 

See Colbert, 235 Md. App. at 588. 

As this Court explained recently, in general, “a municipality has a duty to maintain 

its public works in good condition,” but the duty is not absolute. Colbert, 235 Md. App. at 

588. Indeed, “[i]f an entity is injured because the municipality failed to maintain its public 

works and the municipality had actual or constructive notice of the bad condition that 

caused the damage, the municipality may be held liable in negligence.” Id. Accordingly, 

Ms. Williams “was required to show that [the City] had actual or constructive notice” of 
15

the “bad condition that caused the damage” in order to establish negligence. Id. The law 

imputes constructive notice based on the circumstances of a particular case. City of 

Annapolis v. Stallings, 125 Md. 343, 347 (1915) (citation omitted). A municipality will be 

found to have constructive notice “when the evidence shows that—as a result of the 

‘nature’ of a defective condition or the ‘length of time it has existed’—the municipality 

would have learned of its existence by exercising reasonable care.” Colbert, 235 Md. App. 

at 588 (citation omitted). 

As the party opposing a motion for summary judgment, Ms. Williams had a burden 

to “show disputed material facts with precision in order to prevent the entry of summary 

judgment.” Macias v. Summit Mgmt., Inc., 243 Md. App. 294, 315 (2019) (citing Warsham 

v. James Muscatello, Inc., 189 Md. App. 620, 634 (2009)) (emphasis added). “[M]ere 

general allegations which do not show facts in detail and with precision are insufficient to 

prevent summary judgment.” O’Connor v. Baltimore Cty., 382 Md. 102, 111 (2004) 

(citation omitted). Moreover, although we resolve all inferences in favor of the party 

opposing summary judgment, “those inferences must be reasonable ones.” Kirson, 439 

Md. at 523 (citation and alterations omitted).

In Weisner v. Mayor and Council of Rockville, the Court of Appeals considered 

“whether or not there was any evidence produced at the trial from which the jury may have 

drawn a reasonable inference that the appellee had either actual or constructive notice of 

the alleged icy condition of the sidewalk.” 245 Md. 225, 228 (1967). The Court cited a 

treatise for the following proposition: 
16

Where the cause of injury is snow or ice, the rule that there must be actual or 

constructive notice of the dangerous condition applies the same as in case of 

other obstructions or defects, with the same exception that no notice is 

necessary where the accumulation is caused by acts of municipal officers.

But the mere fact that the municipality knows of a heavy fall of snow, or 

a freeze after a thaw, does not ordinarily include notice of particular 

danger at any point. In such case it seems there must be actual or 

constructive notice of the particular defect or obstruction.

Id. at 229 (emphasis added) (citing 19 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, § 54.114 (3d 

ed. 1950)). Further, the Court instructed,

The law would also appear to require a showing that the condition at the place 

of the accident was more perilous than the general condition of sidewalks 

throughout the municipality and that the particular situation had prevailed for 

such a period of time that the city should have known about it and failed to 

take steps to remedy it.

Id. at 229-30. 

Looking at the facts before it, the Weisner Court emphasized that the “specific 

sidewalk in question had actually been cleared of snow, and at the time of the accident it 

appeared cleared of ice according to the appellant’s own testimony.” Id. at 232. Thus, the 

Court concluded, 

in effect what the appellant is asking this Court to do is to find that there was 

evidence from which the jury might have drawn a reasonable inference, that 

the municipality knew or should have known, that a thin sheet of ice was 

forming on this specific sidewalk, in the early morning hours, as a result of 

the freezing of water which was draining from the adjacent snowbanks and 

that this rendered the sidewalk in question more perilous than sidewalks 

generally throughout the municipality.

Id. at 232-33. The Court held that applying constructive notice to the case “would result 

in the exposure of the municipality to an unreasonable and unrealistic norm of liability.” 

Id. at 233. 
17

In the case before us now, Ms. Williams sets forth a theory of constructive notice

similar to the theory presented by the appellant in Weisner, arguing that “[t]he jury has to 

look at the dates of the complaints, work orders, listen to the testimony of the employee 

who investigated the scene the night before the accident and all other facts that would be 

produced at trial to determine whether Baltimore City had notice.” Despite the volume of 

evidence presented to show that the City had notice of the faulty hydrant, we conclude that 

Ms. Williams failed to present evidence giving rise to an inference that the City had 

constructive notice of water or ice across the roadway. 

Ms. Williams points to the separate complaints the City received about the hydrant 

and emphasizes Mr. Billups’s observation of “medium water.” She asserts that Mr. Billups 

“observed medium water running through the street” and that nothing in the record shows 

that a valve truck was called to address the “constant medium flow of water across the 

street.” Mr. Billups’s testimony, however, clarifies that he did not observe water running 

through or across the street. Rather, his observation of “medium water” indicated that 

there was water “just barely coming out of the street or either the valve.” Mr. Billups also

testified that he would have “let the dispatcher know to refer [a] leaking valve to the valve 

truck, and let them know what type of water was coming from the valve, if it was a little 

bit of water, medium water, or heavy flow[,]” but notice of “medium water” on November 

24, 2015 did not alert the City to the existence of a “bad condition that caused the damage” 

on November 25, 2015. 

In addition, Ms. Williams testified that she did not see, or encounter, any water or 

ice when she passed the hydrant on her way to Sam’s Club on November 25. She further
18

testified that she did not see anything on the roadway when she passed the hydrant on the 

opposite side of Franklin Square Drive on her way home. Thus, regardless of Mr. Billups’s 

observation of “medium water” the day before, there is nothing in the record to show that, 

at the time Ms. Williams alleged to have encountered water or ice, the “particular situation 

had prevailed for such a period of time that the city should have known about it and failed 

to take steps to remedy it.” Weisner, 245 Md. at 229-30. The “mere fact that the 

municipality knows” of a defective hydrant “does not ordinarily include notice of a 

particular danger at any point”; rather, “there must be actual or constructive notice of [a]

particular defect or obstruction.” See id. at 229 (citing 19 McQuillin, Municipal 

Corporations, § 54.114 (3d ed. 1950)). Accordingly, in the absence of other admissible 

evidence, we hold that Ms. Williams did not create a genuine factual dispute about whether 

the City had constructive notice of any hazardous roadway condition, or “bad condition 

that caused the damage.” See Colbert, 235 Md. App. at 588. 

Contrary to Ms. Williams’s argument that the “trial court ignored and never 

addressed whether it found or did not find that material facts in genuine dispute exist,” the 

court did analyze whether a genuine factual dispute existed with regard to constructive 

notice. The court determined that the City had “actual notice of the defective condition of 

the fire hydrant,” but noted that the inquiry was not over. The court proceeded to look at 

the testimony of Ms. Williams and Mr. Billups, before concluding that Ms. Williams 

“failed to produce any evidence to show that there was water or ice in the street where the 

accident occurred on the morning of November 25, 2015,” as would be required to impute 

constructive notice to the City. 
19

II.

Judgment as a Matter of Law

“Summary judgment is appropriate if the nonmoving party has failed to make a 

sufficient showing of an essential element of its case with respect to which it has the burden 

of proof.” Zilichikhis v. Montgomery Cty., 223 Md. App. 158, 186 (2015) (citation and 

internal brackets omitted). To avoid a grant of summary judgment in favor of the 

defendant, a plaintiff must support his or her claim with “more than a scintilla of evidence, 

as there must be evidence upon which a jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff.” 

Blackburn Ltd. P’ship v. Paul, 438 Md. 100, 108 (2014) (citation and internal brackets and 

quotation marks omitted). 

A plaintiff must establish four elements to state a claim of negligence in Maryland: 

“a duty owed to him or her (or to a class of which he or she is a part), a breach of that duty, 

a legally cognizable causal relationship between the breach of the duty and the harm 

suffered, and damages.” Kennedy Krieger Inst., Inc. v. Partlow, 460 Md. 607, 633 (2018) 

(citing Kiriakos v. Phillips, 448 Md. 440, 456 (2016)) (internal brackets omitted). As was 

noted, a municipality generally “owes a duty to persons lawfully using its public streets 

and sidewalks to make them reasonably safe for passage,” and if “a person is injured 

because a municipality failed to maintain its streets,” the municipality may be held liable 

in negligence if it had “actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition that caused 

the injury[.]” Smith v. City of Baltimore, 156 Md. App. 377, 383 (2004).

The circuit court concluded that summary judgment in favor of the City was 

appropriate because Ms. Williams did not provide sufficient “evidence to establish that 
20

water or ice or some other defect in the roadway was the cause of [her] motor vehicle 

accident[.]” Ms. Williams argues that she did provide sufficient evidence at the summary 

judgment stage to allow the case to go to the jury. She relies on the “constant medium flow 

of water across the street the day before [she] lost control of her vehicle”; a “[r]easonable 

inference” that the water remained at the time she lost control; her testimony that “[i]t must 

be something like ice or something on the road” and that she began sliding after applying 

her brakes; and testimony from Jamir Foster and Jael Samuel, who were identified in her 

Answers to Interrogatories as witnesses to the slippery conditions of the roadway. 

In considering Ms. Williams’s argument, we keep in mind the requirement that “the 

facts presented must not only be detailed but also admissible in evidence” in order to 

properly oppose a motion for summary judgment. Zilichikhis, 223 Md. App. at 176-77 

(citation omitted). And, although we resolve all inferences in favor of the party opposing 

summary judgment, the inferences must be reasonable. Hamilton v. Kirson, 439 Md. 501,

523 (2014) (citation and alternations omitted). As we noted above, Mr. Billups’s testimony 

did not establish that there was a flow of water across Franklin Square Drive on November 

24, 2015 that created a hazardous condition. Moreover, Mr. Billups testified if he had 

noticed an icy condition on the road, he “would let [dispatch] know it was an icy condition 

that needed immediate response” and “put cones out.” We note that there is no evidence 

in the record as to what the temperature was on the morning of November 25, 2015. 

Ms. Williams’s testimony that “[i]t must be something like ice or something on the 

road” was a theory rather than a factual assertion, so it cannot support an inference of any 

dangerous condition. See O’Connor v. Baltimore City, 382 Md. 102, 111 (2004).
21

Similarly, the witnesses identified in Ms. Williams’s interrogatories as individuals who 

saw the slippery conditions cannot form the basis of an inference in her favor, as the 

witnesses did not put forth any assertions based on their own personal knowledge. See 

Zilichikhis, 223 Md. App. at 180. The evidence before the circuit court was that no other 

cars encountered any dangerous roadway conditions, Ms. Williams did not see any water 

or ice, and she drove down Franklin Square Drive on the side closest to the hydrant earlier 

on the same day without issue. In the absence of admissible evidence to the contrary, there 

was nothing to support Ms. Williams’s contention that approximately 30 minutes later there 

was a hazardous condition on the side of the road furthest from the hydrant. Although Ms. 

Williams provided evidence that the hydrant was defective, she did not provide sufficient 

evidence that the hydrant created a dangerous roadway condition that caused her accident. 

We discern no error in the circuit court’s determination that Ms. Williams failed to 

produce any evidence that water from the hydrant created an icy or hazardous condition 

that caused her accident. Accordingly, we hold that the court granted summary judgment 

correctly in favor of the City. 

JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT COURT

FOR BALTIMORE CITY AFFIRMED;

COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.