Opinion ID: 2334444
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Heading: Maryland Public Policy

Text: We have not previously applied a public policy exception to the lex loci delicti doctrine, although our case law strongly indicates that we would do so in a proper case. We have long recognized, and have on occasion applied, such an exception under analogous lex loci principles and have implicitly recognized the exception in a tort action subject to lex loci delicti. In breach of contract actions, this Court has traditionally applied the doctrine of lex loci contractus, under which, in deciding upon the validity and construction of a contract, we generally apply the law of the place where the contract was made. We have just as consistently held, however, that the lex loci contractus principle is not inflexible and that it does not apply to a contract provision which is against Maryland public policy. Bethlehem Steel v. G.C. Zarnas & Co., 304 Md. 183, 188, 498 A.2d 605, 608 (1985) and cases cited there. We cautioned in Bethlehem Steel that merely because Maryland law is dissimilar to the law of another jurisdiction does not render the latter contrary to Maryland public policy and that for another state's law to be unenforceable, there must be a `strong public policy against its enforcement in Maryland.' Id. at 189, 498 A.2d at 608, quoting in part from Texaco v. Vanden Bosche, 242 Md. 334, 340-41, 219 A.2d 80, 84 (1966). See also National Glass v. J.C. Penney, 336 Md. 606, 650 A.2d 246 (1994). In Hutzell v. Boyer, 252 Md. 227, 249 A.2d 449 (1969) and Hauch v. Connor, supra, 295 Md. 120, 453 A.2d 1207, we applied a public policy exception in the context of workers' compensation statutes, which we recognized had some affinity to contract and tort principles but were sufficiently different from both to be considered separately. The issue in those cases was whether Maryland would allow a fellow-employee actionan action implicitly permitted under the Maryland workers' compensation law but not permitted under the law where the parties were employed ( Hutzell ) or where the accident occurred ( Hauch ). In Hutzell, although the parties were temporarily employed in Virginia, the employment-related accident occurred in Maryland and the parties were both residents of Maryland. In rejecting application of the Virginia law, which otherwise would have been required, the Court observed that Maryland had a genuine interest in the welfare of a person injured within its borders, who may conceivably become a public charge due to a disabling injury and that [t]he social and economic problems following in the wake of a serious injury as they may affect the dependents of the person injured are properly matters of public concern. Hutzell, 252 Md. at 233, 249 A.2d at 452. The Hauch court regarded that as a public policy exception and applied that exception to the situation in which the co-employees were residents of and employed in Maryland but where the accident occurred in Delaware. In Harford Mutual v. Bruchey, 248 Md. 669, 238 A.2d 115 (1968), a Maryland couple sued a Maryland company in a Maryland court for damages arising from an automobile accident that occurred in Virginia. In addition to any direct personal injuries, the husband sued for loss of consortium, an action that, by statute, was not allowed in Virginia. We concluded that, under lex loci delicti principles, Virginia law would generally apply, but acknowledged the question of whether there is extant in Maryland such a strong public policy in favor of recovery by a husband for loss of consortium as to require its courts to refuse to apply the law of a sister State which does not recognize such a right. Id. at 674, 238 A.2d at 117. We concluded that there was no such strong public policy. Id. We observed that a husband's right to recover for loss of consortium had been characterized as an anachronism, a fossil from an earlier era, an anachronistic common law rule, and a vestigial right, which, we said, hardly indicates recognition of a strong public policy in Maryland in favor of recovery for deprivation of consortium. Id. at 675, 238 A.2d at 118. Although we did not find in Harford Mutual a sufficiently clear and strong public policy to disregard the lex loci delicti in favor of allowing a loss of consortium claim, the case cannot be read other than as recognizing that there is a public policy exception to the lex loci delicti rule and that we would apply it in an appropriate case. See also Linton v. Linton, 46 Md. App. 660, 420 A.2d 1249 (1980); Rhee v. Combined Enterprises, Inc., 74 Md.App. 214, 536 A.2d 1197, cert. dismissed, 314 Md. 123, 549 A.2d 385 (1988); Black v. Leatherwood, 92 Md.App. 27, 606 A.2d 295 (1992). We can find no principled basis upon which to recognize such an exception in contract and workers' compensation cases but to deny it in tort cases. The question certified is thus presented: does denying Maryland residents the right to bring a wrongful birth action by applying North Carolina law violate the public policy of the State of Maryland? Should the District Court, in light of our response to the first certified question, still find this question relevant, our answer is Yes. This is not a case like Harford Mutual, which needs to be examined in context. Under long-established Maryland common law, only a husband could sue for loss of consortium in Marylandfor the loss of society, affection, assistance, and conjugal fellowship of his wife. The wife had no comparable right. See Coastal Tank Lines v. Canoles, 207 Md. 37, 113 A.2d 82 (1955). That anomaly was founded on the ancient common law premise that the husband was entitled to his wife's services and was obliged to support her but that the wife was not entitled to her husband's services and was not obliged to support him. Id. at 50-51, 113 A.2d at 88. As the clearest basis for maintaining that unequal right in the middle of the 20th Century, the Coastal Tank Lines Court quoted the pronouncement from the House of Lords decision in Best v. Samuel Fox & Co., Ltd. [1952] A.C. 716, affirming [1951] 2. K.B. 639, that [t]he common law is a historical development rather than a logical whole, and the fact that a particular doctrine does not logically accord with another or others is no ground for its rejection. Coastal Tank Lines, at 48, 113 A.2d at 87. In Deems v. Western Maryland Ry., 247 Md. 95, 100-101, 231 A.2d 514, 517 (1967), decided a mere seven months before Harford Mutual, the Court, in considering a Constitutional equal protection challenge to such an unfair rule, decided, in lieu of either abolishing the action or extending it to the wife, to regard it, prospectively, as a joint action for injury to the marital relationship. Although preserving the action in its converted form, there is nothing in the Deems Opinion to suggest that the Court had any great attachment to the action; rather, it transformed the action into a joint one only to avoid having to resolve the Federal Constitutional attack on it, Deems, 247 Md. at 113, 231 A.2d at 524, and, indeed, the Court expressly cautioned that it was not deciding the effect that any Federal statute might have in foreclosing any claim for consortium under the Maryland law. Id. at 115, 231 A.2d at 525. As noted, the Harford Mutual Court still considered the action, even in its new emanation, as vestigial, anachronistic, and a fossil from an earlier era, and, consistently with the caution expressed in Deems, did not regard the existence of the action in Maryland as a reason not to apply Virginia law. The right of parents to bring an action for wrongful birth is quite different. It is not a vestige of ancient common law illogic but, as we noted in Kassama v. Magat, 368 Md. 113, 134, 792 A.2d 1102, 1115 (2002), is of a type that, as a practical matter, could not have been brought before the last half of the 20th Century. At its core, we said, it rests to a large extent on the more recent advances in medical and scientific knowledge that made contraception more practical and reliable and made potential fetal injuries and defects detectable prior to birth, and even prior to conception, coupled with the loosening of the fetters on abortions triggered in 1973 by Roe v. Wade.  Id. In Reed v. Campagnolo, supra, 332 Md. 226, 630 A.2d 1145, we pointed out that [t]he clear majority of courts that has considered the type of medical malpractice case alleged by the Reeds has concluded that there is legally cognizable injury, proximately caused by a breach of duty, id. at 235-36, 630 A.2d at 1149-50, and that there is at least some economic harm to the parents in these casesa harm that can be quantified under the general rules relating to tort damages. Id. at 236, 630 A.2d at 1150. We expressly rejected the approach of Azzolino as contrary to both Maryland law and the law of most States, and adopted instead the view of the Massachusetts court in Viccaro v. Milunsky, 406 Mass. 777, 551 N.E.2d 8, 10 (1990) that the harm is not the birth itself but the effect of the defendant's negligence on the [parents] resulting from the denial to the parents of their right, as the case may be, to decide whether to bear a child or whether to bear a child with a genetic or other defect. Reed, supra, 332 Md. at 237, 630 A.2d at 1150, quoting from Viccaro. Reed was a carefully considered and deliberate recognition that, when prospective parents, relying on the negligent act or omission of a health care professional, elect to continue a pregnancy that they otherwise would have lawfully terminated and, as a result, are burdened with the cost and expense of raising a child with a serious genetic or other physical or mental defect, they have been injured and have a right to seek damages for that injury from the person whose negligence led to the injury. That right is a matter of important public policy in this State, flowing not only from this Court's considered view but as well from statute. See Maryland Code, § 20-209(b), of the Health General Article, precluding the State from interfering with the decision of a woman to terminate her pregnancy at any time during the pregnancy if the fetus is affected by genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality. We thus conclude that, if application of North Carolina law would preclude this cause of action on the ground stated in Azzolino that no injury has occurred, we would hold that aspect of North Carolina law to be contrary to clear, strong, and important Maryland public policy and would not apply it.