Opinion ID: 2341826
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cause of Action in Foreign Jurisdiction.

Text: Where such cause of action arose in a foreign jurisdiction, any person who is entitled to bring suit under the laws of such jurisdiction may bring suit in this State. Even though the General Assembly had treated standing to bring a wrongful death action as a procedural matter, and even though § 3-903(b) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article specified that Maryland rules of procedure would govern procedural matters when the wrongful act occurred in another jurisdiction, Maryland procedural law, namely Rule Q41b, incorporated by reference the standing law of the state where the wrongful act occurred. Accordingly, if the events in the case at bar had taken place before 1997, the plaintiffs would not have been able to bring the claims based upon Corporal Jones's wrongful acts in Virginia. This would not have been on the ground that standing was a substantive matter governed by foreign law. It would have been on the ground that Maryland procedural law provided for different plaintiffs for claims based on acts in Virginia. In 1995, however, the Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (hereafter referred to as the Rules Committee), as part of a comprehensive re-codification of the Maryland Rules of Procedure concerning special proceedings, recommended to the Court of Appeals that Rule Q41a in substance be incorporated into new Rule 15-1001(b) which would provide as follows: (b) Plaintiff. If the wrongful act occurred in this State, all persons who are or may be entitled by law to damages by reason of the wrongful death shall be named as plaintiffs whether or not they join in the action. The words to the use of shall precede the name of any person named as a plaintiff who does not join in the action. See the 132nd Report of the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, 22 Maryland Register, Issue 24, P-110 (November 24, 1995). At the same time, the Rules Committee recommended that Rule Q41b, concerning standing when the wrongful act occurred outside of this State, be repealed and not be incorporated in a new rule. A Reporter's Note, which had been prepared for a subcommittee of the Rules Committee, stated: Section b of Rule Q41 is not incorporated, because believed substantive in nature. The Reporter's Note did not explain why the issue of standing to bring the action was regarded as procedural if the wrongful act occurred in Maryland but substantive if the wrongful act occurred outside of Maryland. The minutes of the Rules Committee's meeting, at which the full Committee decided to approve of and forward these recommendations to the Court of Appeals, disclose that there was no discussion whatsoever of this issue. The Court of Appeals, at a meeting in 1996, adopted these recommendations by the Rules Committee, with the new special proceeding rules to be effective January 1, 1997. The minutes of the Court of Appeals' meeting also reveal no discussion whatsoever of the standing issue in wrongful death cases. Despite the view expressed in the Reporter's Note, the General Assembly has not enacted a statute dealing with standing in wrongful death actions. In sum, there are today no Maryland statutory provisions with respect to standing to bring a wrongful death action. This confirms the General Assembly's 1962 determination that standing to bring a wrongful death action is a procedural matter to be covered by rules and not an issue of substantive law. The Maryland Rules of Procedure adopted by the Court of Appeals, which are constitutionally limited to rules and regulations concerning the practice and procedure in and the administration of the appellate courts and the other courts of this State, [11] provide, in Rule 15-1001(b), that the statutory beneficiaries are the persons with standing to bring a wrongful death action [i]f the wrongful act occurred in this State.... There is no longer a rule specifying standing to bring a wrongful death action when the wrongful act occurs outside of Maryland. As standing to bring a wrongful death action is a procedural matter within the meaning of § 3-903 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, it is governed by Maryland law. And because no current Maryland rule or statute covers standing to bring a wrongful death action based on a wrongful act outside of Maryland, the issue would logically seem to be governed by Maryland common law standing principles. Under Maryland common law, standing to bring a judicial action generally depends on whether one is aggrieved, which means whether a plaintiff has an interest `such that he [or she] is personally and specifically affected in a way different from ... the public generally.' Sugarloaf v. Dept. of Environment, 344 Md. 271, 288, 686 A.2d 605, 614 (1996), quoting Medical Waste v. Maryland Waste, 327 Md. 596, 611 n. 9, 612 A.2d 241, 248-249 n. 9 (1992) (some internal quotation marks omitted). Under this principle, the statutory beneficiaries of a wrongful death action are obviously the persons aggrieved and the persons whose interest is greater than that of anyone else. Therefore, under the Maryland wrongful death statute and Maryland standing principles, the plaintiffs were entitled to maintain this action.