Opinion ID: 1022749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 2d at 554 (emphasis added).

Text: The cases the majority relies upon to support a duty here are not on point: each involves employment or consumer negotiations where “vital and material information” was within the “exclusive control” of the defendant. Id. at 556 (pre-contractual employment negotiations); Weisman v. Connors, 540 A.2d 783, 793-94 (Md. 1988) 31 (same); Giant Food, Inc. v. Ice King, Inc., 536 A.2d 1182, 1185-86 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1988) (extensive and detailed consumer negotiations). Baltimore County is not a vulnerable consumer or prospective employee. It has a wealth of prior experience with insurance matters; has been a party to this Policy or its predecessor for more than 35 years; and is itself an insurer. Unlike the prospective employees or would-be purchasers in the cases cited by the majority, all the County had to do to understand its rights was read the contract. Holzman v. Fiola Blum, Inc., 726 A.2d 818, 831 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1999) (A party “is under a duty to learn the contents of a contract before signing it” and “presumed to know the contents”). C. The district court’s conclusion that Johnson was fraudulently joined should also be upheld because Baltimore County cannot establish reasonable reliance. See ante at 16 (quoting Griesi, 756 A.2d at 553). Where, as here, a policy provides that no agent has the authority to amend the agreement or bind the company by a promise or representation, reliance upon an agent representation which purports to modify the policy is unreasonable as a matter of law. See, e.g., Cannon v. Southland Life Ins. Co., 283 A.2d 404, 407-08 (Md. 1971); Simpson v. Prudential Ins. Co., 177 A.2d 417, 421 (Md. 1962). 32 In the case at hand, the Baltimore County/Connecticut General Policy prohibits agent-modification. It provides: POLICY CHANGES. Changes may be made in the policy only by amendment signed by the Policyholder and by the Insurance Company acting through its President, Vice President, Secretary or Assistant Secretary. No agent may change or waive any terms of the policy. J.A. 118 (emphasis added). The policy plainly put Baltimore County on notice that (1) any policy change must be in writing and signed by a Connecticut General officer; and (2) neither Joe Mock, Art Johnson, nor any other agent had any authority whatsoever to amend the Baltimore County/Connecticut General Policy. Nevertheless, the majority brushes aside as irrelevant the nomodification clause: according to my colleagues, the provision is inapposite “[b]ecause the policy does not apply to the IBNR.” See ante at 21. The majority apparently views the IBNR agreement as a different contract. Yet, since almost any modification can be construed as a new contract, the majority’s conclusion that the IBNR account is a brand-new agreement reads the no-modification clause right out of the Policy. And, even if the IBNR account could be considered a separate pact, the majority’s suggestion only underscores the unreasonableness of the County’s alleged reliance. Neither Joe Mock nor Art Johnson had any authority whatsoever to amend the Baltimore County/Connecticut General Policy, much less enter into a new contract. In short, Baltimore County had no more reason to believe Joe Mock could orally bind Connecticut General to 33 a new insurance agreement than it had reason to believe he could orally amend the existing one. IV. Whatever one’s view of the scope of fraudulent joinder, the doctrine exists for a purpose: to afford fair treatment to out-ofstate defendants sued by in-state residents. It is obvious to me, as it was to the district court, that Baltimore County is seeking to have its claim heard in a forum which it believes will favor its position vis-a-vis an out-of-state insurance company. While I have total confidence in the ability of state courts to administer justice impartially, a defendant’s right to remove a case that could be heard in federal court should not be so easily overcome by litigation tactics. See McKinney v. Bd. of Trs. of Mayland Cmty. Coll., 955 F.2d 924, 927-28 (4th Cir. 1992). The cost of permitting this sort of jurisdictional gamesmanship extends beyond the mere defeat of what Congress deems the legitimate purposes of diversity jurisdiction. Fraudulent joinders exact a high toll on individuals who do not rightly belong in a lawsuit: as a result, lives are disrupted by expensive and unnecessary litigation. In my view, human beings are not sacrificial pawns on the board of a party’s litigation strategy. I would affirm the judgment of the district courts in all respects. 34