Opinion ID: 2295382
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Condition Precedent Issue

Text: Since at least State, u/o Stasciewicz v. Parks, 148 Md. 477, 479-82, 129 A. 793, 795 (1925), this Court has construed the time limit in the wrongful death statute to be a substantive provision, that is, a condition precedent to asserting the statutorily created cause of action. See, e.g., Trimper v. Porter-Hayden, 305 Md. 31, 501 A.2d 446 (1985) (superseded in part by statute, § 3-904(g)(2), regarding occupational disease); [5] Slate v. Zitomer, 275 Md. 534, 542, 341 A.2d 789, 794 (1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1076, 96 S.Ct. 862, 47 L.Ed.2d 87 (1976). A plaintiff who does not assert the cause of action within the statutorily prescribed time, now three years, loses the right to sue a defendant who is not estopped to assert the defense. See Chandlee v. Shockley, 219 Md. 493, 502-03, 150 A.2d 438, 443 (1959). Even infancy of the plaintiff when a wrongful death claim was asserted and settled by a parent of the plaintiff does not toll the triggering of the timeliness condition. See Waddell v. Kirkpatrick, 331 Md. 52, 65, 626 A.2d 353, 359 (1993). See also Georgia-Pacific Corp. v. Benjamin, 394 Md. 59, 77-87, 904 A.2d 511, 522-27 (2006) (contrasting conditions precedent with statute of limitations). Here, UMMSC seeks to have us construe the one-action provision, § 3-904(f), as a condition precedent, but with a significant twist. Ordinarily it is the wrongful death plaintiff who fails to sue timely who is out of court. UMMSC asks us to hold that those plaintiffs who timely sued in this case are also out of court because there may be another living child of Elliott's who may attempt to sue, leaving UMMSC theoretically exposed to more than one wrongful death action. This argument considers the statute to compel that a wrongful death action be a unitary action by all actual or potential beneficiaries. That is not the construction placed by this Court on the 1852 statute's one-action provision in Deford v. State, u/o Keyser, 30 Md. 179 (1869). The deceased, Mrs. Keyser, a widow, had nine children, all of whom were alive when the reported wrongful death suit was filed by a next friend on behalf of four infant children and an adult daughter. Id. at 181, 184. The tortfeasor argued that, because there were children who had not joined in the declaration and who were not named in the particulars, the plaintiff cannot recover under the pleadings ... because of such non-joinder. Id. at 184. This Court, speaking through Judge Alvey, rejected the argument, saying: The action is brought in the name of the State as legal plaintiff, for the use of such of the children of the deceased as may have been actually damaged by her death; and those who have joined in bringing the suit are those, as we may presume, who supposed themselves damaged; and if there be others who have not joined, it cannot prejudice the rights of those who have. Nor is it a matter of which the defendant Deford can complain, that all the children are not joined, for he is subject to but one action, for and in respect of the same subject matter of complaint; and the jury can only `give such damages as they may think proportioned to the injury, resulting from such death, to the parties respectively, for whom and for whose benefit such action shall be brought; ' and not to all the children, or even to all those who might or could show themselves injured by the death, unless they join in bringing the action. 1 Code, 449, Art. 65, sec. 2. Id. at 208 (emphasis in original). Further, with reference to the joinder of the adult daughter, the Court held: And the joinder of a party, as cestui que use, who may not be entitled to a portion of the damages awarded, should not be allowed to defeat or prejudice the rights of others who may be entitled. It is for the jury, in all such cases as this, to say whether the condition of the child, without reference to age, is one of such dependence upon the deceased parent, as to entitle it to damages in respect of the injury suffered. Id. The result of the omission of a beneficiary was stated in State, u/o Bashe v. Boyce, 72 Md. 140, 19 A. 366 (1890), where Judge McSherry, writing for this Court, said: [The 1852 Act] permits but one suit to be instituted against the same defendant for an injury resulting in death; and therefore all who have a right to unite as plaintiffs, but who omit to become parties, are excluded from bringing a subsequent action. Id. at 143, 19 A. at 367. Perkins's Notes to the Deford case, 30 Md. at 180, note (f), published in 1898, state, citing to Boyce, that the one-action clause prevents a second suit. Herbert Tiffany, writing in 1925 on death caused by negligence, states: The defendant is liable to but one action, but the non-joinder as equitable parties of one or more who might have sued, can not prejudice the rights of those who do sue; and the joinder of a party as an equitable plaintiff who may not be entitled to recover, does not defeat or prejudice the rights of others who may be entitled. 1 Poe, Pleading and Practice § 453, at 441 (5th Tiffany ed.1925). More recently, Matthew Bender & Co., Maryland Tort Law Handbook § 13.2 (2011), states that [j]oinder of all potential plaintiffs, however, is not a requirement to maintaining the suit. (Emphasis in original). Thus, the one-action clause, that has been in the wrongful death statute since 1852 without substantial change, is not a basis for dismissing an original plaintiff's claim for failure to identify a potential beneficiary as a use plaintiff. UMMSC submits, in response to the Deford and Boyce cases, that they have been overruled, implicitly, by Walker v. Essex, 318 Md. 516, 569 A.2d 645 (1990), and Ace Am. Ins. Co. v. Williams, 418 Md. 400, 15 A.3d 761 (2011). Walker stands for the proposition that a use plaintiff, who was not identified in the suit as filed, but who asserts his or her claim within the window of the three year condition precedent, and before any judgment has been entered for the original plaintiffs, must be joined. On appeal from an unenrolled judgment, the remedy applied in Walker was to enlarge the set of claimants seeking damages, not to dismiss the original plaintiffs. The deceased in Walker died on February 9, 1986. He was survived by two sons by different mothers. One son, Lupe, sued through his mother in February 1987 and agreed upon a settlement in March. Before it was consummated, the defendant's insurer learned of the half-brother, Marcus, and resisted paying. Lupe amended the complaint to add Marcus as a use plaintiff, and moved to enforce the settlement. Marcus sought to intervene. At a hearing in August 1987, the circuit court entered judgment for Lupe in the amount of the settlement, and it also allowed intervention. Thus, the trial judge was prepared to let Marcus pursue his wrongful death claim after judgment had been entered on Lupe's wrongful death claim. The trial court refused to open the judgment, as requested by Marcus, and he appealed. This Court vacated the judgment for Lupe and remanded. We applied the one-action rule, describing it as designed to protect a defendant from being vexed by several suits instituted by or on behalf of different equitable plaintiffs for the same injury, when all the parties could be joined in one proceeding. Walker, 318 Md. at 523, 569 A.2d at 648. The claims were not severable in that they could not be tried in separate actions, against the same defendant, as the trial judge considered them to be. Rather, [a] judgment should not have been entered in the circuit court unless it included the interests of all the known beneficiaries. Id. at 524, 569 A.2d at 648 (emphasis added). This is because [t]he statutory language does not allow a judgment for one of the beneficiaries to be made a matter of record, as by its very nature, other claims are forever foreclosed or barred. Id. at 523-24, 569 A.2d at 648. Ace v. Williams , like Walker, recognized the viability of claims of known beneficiaries who asserted their rights within three years of the decedent's death, but who had not been accounted for in a settlement that was reduced to judgment. Ace extended the holding of Walker by reopening an enrolled judgment in order to permit resolution of the claims of the omitted beneficiaries. In that case, the deceased was struck and killed by a motor vehicle on September 12, 2002. He was survived by two sons from a prior marriage (Group One) and by his widow and their two sons (Group Two). Group Two sued on May 14, 2003 ( Williams I ). Their complaint identified Group One in the background allegations, but did not name them as use plaintiffs. Ace, 418 Md. at 407, 15 A.3d at 765. Group Two negotiated a settlement under which the principal contributor was Ace, the deceased's underinsured motorists coverage carrier. Ace insisted, inter alia, that Group One be named as use plaintiffs. Counsel for Group Two prepared an amended complaint, so providing, that was served on Group One, id. at 411, 15 A.3d at 767, but there was no record of its having been filed in court. Group Two petitioned for court approval of the settlement that excluded Group One, but that petition was not served on Group One. By an order docketed May 19, 2005, the court approved the settlement of Williams I, and declared all claims stemming from the death of the decedent to be satisfied. Group Two filed an order of satisfaction on June 6, 2005. Id. at 414-15, 15 A.3d at 769. On July 21, 2005, about a month and a half before the third anniversary of the deceased's death, Group One filed suit against, inter alia, Ace ( Williams II ). [6] Id. at 415, 15 A.3d at 769. Group One asked that the judgment in Williams I be opened and that that case be consolidated with Williams II. Id. at 420, 15 A.3d at 772. The circuit court refused to do so, and entered summary judgment in Williams II for Group Two. On cross-appeals, the Court of Special Appeals vacated the enrolled judgment in Williams I and reversed the summary judgment in Williams II. Williams v. Work, 192 Md.App. 438, 995 A.2d 744 (2010). It reasoned: Although Rule 15-1001(b) does not require formal joinder, the failure to include a known statutory beneficiary as a plaintiff or a `use plaintiff' in a wrongful death action and to settle without providing for that beneficiary can be analogized to the failure to join a necessary party in an action where joinder is required. In our view, because of the one action rule, the failure to do so is a `defect' or `mistake' of jurisdictional proportions in the proceeding, which may be raised at any time. Id. at 455-56, 995 A.2d at 755. This Court, on certiorari review, affirmed. We selectively quoted portions of the Court of Special Appeals' opinion, including the rationale set forth above. Ace does not support UMMSC's position in the case before us. Ace does not hold that the original plaintiffs, Group Two, lost their claims because known beneficiaries, Group One, had not been identified as use plaintiffs in Williams I. Although the settlement, i.e., the judgment in Williams I, was vacated in Ace, and the judgment in Williams II was reversed, Williams v. Work, 192 Md.App. at 468, 995 A.2d at 762, the entire matter was remanded for further proceedings to which the original plaintiffs and the use plaintiffs, who had joined the action, would be parties. Further, Ace does not affect the long recognized condition precedent that requires a beneficiary to sue within three years of death. In the case sub judice, Ricky did not do so. [7] Consequently, Ricky's claim has expired.