Opinion ID: 2329152
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Was There An Award?

Text: In Alfred Munzer, M.D., P.A. v. Ramsey, supra, 63 Md.App. 350, 492 A.2d 946, a claim was made against five health care providers, and an arbitration panel was appointed to hear the claim. Prior to any arbitration, the chairman of the panel, acting alone, signed an order granting summary judgment in favor of one of the providers, upon concluding that there was no liability on the part of that provider to the claimant. No costs were assessed and, although copies of the order were sent to the parties, the original order was never delivered to the HCAO Director. The case against the other providers proceeded but was eventually settled and, as a result of the settlement, dismissed. No award of any kind was made with respect to them. The claimant then rejected the award in favor of the one provider and filed an action in Circuit Court seeking, in the alternative, either nullification or a remand to the panel to proceed with the arbitration. The Circuit Court concluded that there was no award to nullify and that it had no jurisdiction in the matter, and it ordered the case remanded to HCAO. The Court of Special Appeals believed likewise and directed that the Circuit Court action be dismissed without prejudice, to permit the arbitration to proceed. In reaching that conclusion, the Court of Special Appeals did not resolve whether the panel chair had the authority to enter a summary judgment, and, indeed, it confirmed an earlier holding in Stifler v. Weiner, 62 Md.App. 19, 488 A.2d 192 (1985), cert. denied, 304 Md. 96, 497 A.2d 819 (1985), that a panel chair did have authority to enter summary awards in certain situations. Rather, it held that, whether the panel chair was right or wrong, no award was ever made. An award, it said, must not only resolve the issues of liability and damages but also assess the costs of arbitration and be delivered to the HCAO Director. In the Munzer case, there was no assessment of costs and, as noted, the order was never delivered to the Director. Until that was done, the court added, the order was entirely interlocutory and subject to change by the panel chair. The case before us is quite different, in part because of changes in the legal landscape. For one thing, as we have observed, it is now clear that the panel chair may resolve issues of law and decide all prehearing procedures including issues relating to discovery. CJP § 3-2A-05(a)(1) and (c). The dismissal ordered here was a sanction for what the panel chair believed was the failure to provide discovery as required in her scheduling order. In that regard, we note that CJP § 3-2A-02(d) makes the Maryland Rules applicable to all practice and procedure issues arising under this subtitle, that CJP § 3-2A-05(b)(2) specifically makes the Maryland Rules relating to discovery applicable to proceedings under the subtitle, and that Maryland Rule 2-433 permits a court, upon a plaintiff's failure to provide discovery, to dismiss an action. Moreover, unlike the situation in Munzer, the order here did assess costs  they were split equally between the parties  and it was filed with the HCAO Director. When Munzer was decided, the term award was not defined, either in the statute or in the Maryland Rules implementing the statute. In 1997, we revised the rules relating to health claims arbitration and, in the process, adopted Maryland Rule 15-402(b), which defines award as a final determination of a health care malpractice claim by an arbitration panel or by the panel chair. (Emphasis added). Unquestionably, the order by the panel chair dismissing Frew's claim constituted a final determination of that claim. There was nothing left before HCAO, especially when Frew's motion for reconsideration was denied. Whether the order was right or wrong, authorized or unauthorized, it clearly disposed of the claim and thus constituted an award in favor of the defendants. It was therefore subject to rejection by Frew and an action in court to nullify it. One question raised in Munzer and addressed by the intermediate appellate court in this case  what ultimate relief should be granted  still lingers. The effect of vacating the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals and directing that court to dismiss the appeal would leave the case pending in the Circuit Court, which would be inconsistent with the approach taken in Munzer. When Munzer was decided in 1985, the law did not permit a waiver of the arbitration procedure unless all parties agreed. It was thus clear, at that time, that, subject to a limited and undefined right of a panel chair to make certain kinds of summary dispositions, each party had a statutory right to have the claim resolved on its merits, either as a matter of fact or as a matter of law, by an arbitration panel, and, as the Munzer court noted, the plaintiff in that case asked, as alternative relief in the Circuit Court, that the case be remanded to the arbitration panel. If a claim was improperly dismissed by a panel chair, the appropriate course of action was to have the matter remanded to HCAO so that the statutorily mandated arbitration could occur. In 1995, the General Assembly, through the enactment of CJP § 3-2A-06B, permitted a claimant or any defendant, unilaterally, to waive arbitration and permit the case to be resolved initially in the Circuit Court. Section 3-2A-06B(b) provides that a waiver by a claimant may be made at any time after filing the certificate of qualified expert required by § 3-2A-04(b) of this subtitle. If, as here, no such certificate is required in the particular case, the waiver may be made prior to the time that a certificate otherwise would be due. Unlike in Munzer, Frew did not ask that the case be remanded to HCAO for any further proceeding; when the panel chair dismissed his claim, he filed a Complaint in the Circuit Court and asked for a jury trial. We shall treat that as an election to waive arbitration before an HCAO panel. Section 3-2A-06B(b) requires that a waiving claimant file a written waiver with the HCAO Director and serve a copy on all other parties. That was done. A copy of the Complaint that effected the waiver was delivered to the Director of HCAO and was served on the other parties, as required. There is no occasion, therefore, to cause the matter to be remanded to HCAO. JUDGMENT OF COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS VACATED; CASE REMANDED TO THAT COURT WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO DISMISS APPEAL; COSTS IN THIS COURT AND IN COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONERS.