Opinion ID: 2557538
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: LGTCA's Damage Caps

Text: To increase predictability, and provide an upper limit to a local government's potential liability, the LGTCA limits the amount a tort plaintiff can recover from a local government to $200,000 per individual claim and $500,000 per total claims arising from the same occurrence. See CJP § 5-303(a)(1). The jury awarded Longtin $5,025,000, a sum well in excess of the limits provided in the LGTCA. The trial court refused to lower the award, an issue the Defendants challenge on appeal. We must decide, therefore, whether the LGTCA's cap on damages applies in this case so as to limit the permissible award. The timeline of Longtin's arrest, detention, release, and civil suit, overlays a period of significant development of the LGTCA's damage cap provisions, beginning with this Court's opinion in Housing Auth. v. Bennett, 359 Md. 356, 754 A.2d 367 (2000). There, a plaintiff sued the Housing Authority of Baltimore City for damages caused by her childhood lead poisoning. The plaintiff alleged that the Housing Authority was negligent in allowing flaking lead-based paint to remain [in her home,] and sought several million dollars of damages. See id. at 364, 754 A.2d at 371. The Authority filed a motion in Court to limit their potential liability to $200,000, which the Circuit Court granted. The applicability of the damage caps was raised on appeal, among other issues. The version of the LGTCA in front of this Court contained the following damages limitation: (a) Limitation on liability  (1) ... the liability of a local government may not exceed $200,000 per an individual claim, and $500,000 per total claims that arise from the same occurrence for damages resulting from tortious acts or omissions, including liability arising under subsection (b) of this section. ... (b) When government liable  (1) ... a local government shall be liable for any judgment against its employee for damages resulting from tortious acts or omissions committed by the employee within the scope of employment with the local government. Md.Code (1974, 1998 Repl.Vol., 1999 Cum. Supp.), CJP § 5-303 (emphasis added). Section (a) thus capped the damages available against a local government, including respondeat superior liability, which was identified in subsection (b). Because Bennett did not deal with a suit under respondeat superior, but instead involved a direct suit against the Housing Authority, the parties disputed whether the word including signified that the damages caps were intended to apply outside of claims of respondeat liability. See Bennett, 359 Md. at 370, 754 A.2d at 374. The Housing Authority argued that a cap which includes respondeat superior liability within its coverage necessarily includes some other type of liability, such as direct liability. Not persuaded by this argument, this Court adopted the plaintiff's interpretation, holding that the statute did not apply to direct suits: In the context of the LGTCA, we do not believe that the monetary limitation, by use of the word including with reference to liability for judgments against employees, should be construed as also applying to all tort judgments directly against local governments and agencies regardless of the basis for such judgments. As previously discussed, the only liability mentioned in §§ 5-301 through 5-303 is liability to provide a defense in tort actions against employees, liability to pay judgments in tort actions against employees, and liability to indemnify employees. Furthermore, limitations upon liability in a governmental tort claims act ordinarily relate to the liability created by or expressly dealt with in that tort claims act. Id. at 373, 754 A.2d at 376. We concluded that [i]t would not be a reasonable construction of the statutory language ... to apply the monetary caps to tort actions directly against local governments[.] Id. The Bennett decision caused alarm among local governments, who immediately sought corrective action from the General Assembly. In the following session, in early 2001, the General Assembly passed emergency legislation to [clarify] that the monetary limits on the liability of a local government under the [LGTCA] apply to claims against local governments when named as defendants [and] that the monetary limits under [LGTCA] apply to tort judgments for which local governments are liable. ... Chapter 286 of the Acts of 2001. The Governor signed this legislation into effect on April 20, 2001. Importantly, the General Assembly gave this revision to the LGTCA a retroactive effect, stating in an uncodified section that: [The] Act shall apply to any claim for damages under § 5-303 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article in a case pending on the effective date of this Act and arising from events occurring on or after July 1, 1987. (Emphasis added). Longtin was released from prison exactly one week after the Bennett decision was filed. Thus, its holding  that local governments faced unlimited liability for direct suits  was the status of the law upon his release. The question then is whether the subsequent revisions to the LGTCA apply retroactively to limit Longtin's direct claims. [23] It is a hallmark of our jurisprudence that retroactive legislation may not deprive a person of a vested right. See Dua v. Comcast Cable of Md., Inc., 370 Md. 604, 625-630, 805 A.2d 1061, 1073-1077 (2002) (detailing over 150 years of Maryland cases which invalidated retroactive legislation to vested rights). Retroactive deprivation of a vested right violates Article 24 of the Declaration of Rights and Article III, § 40, of the Constitution. Id. at 629-630, 805 A.2d at 1076. We must decide, therefore, whether Longtin possessed vested rights at the time of his release from jail. See State Comm'n on Human Relations v. Amecom, 278 Md. 120, 123, 360 A.2d 1, 4 (1976) (there is no absolute prohibition against retroactive application of a statute.). In this case, the Court of Special Appeals ruled that the right at issue for Mr. Longtin was his cause of action for the full amount of damages: Here, what was at stake was a fully accrued cause of action for complete recovery for constitutional violations that were not previously subject to an assertion of either all or partial local government immunity. Longtin, 190 Md.App. at 128, 988 A.2d at 38. [24] The CSA concluded that this right had vested by the statutory change, and thus could not be retroactively deprived. Id. The Defendants object to this conclusion, and argue that Longtin had no vested right to damages above the statutory cap. In a somewhat conclusory argument, the Defendants state that the cap resulted in no adjustment of any burden or benefit of economic life; no readjustment of such rights or burdens; no disruption of anyone's settled expectations; and no burdening of any limited class with new liabilities. In a seminal case written by Judge Eldridge, we were called to consider whether two statutes with retroactive effect that limited potential recovery by a party deprived a vested right. Dua, 370 Md. 604, 805 A.2d 1061. In Dua, the plaintiffs sought to recover from Comcast monthly late fees which they had paid to Comcast, to the extent that such fees exceeded six per cent per annum, the legal rate of interest set forth in Maryland's constitution. One of these two statutes, passed after the alleged illegal late fees were paid, established the validity of late fees in certain allowable amounts, and stated that this Act shall apply to all late fees provided for in contracts entered into, or in effect, on or after November 5, 1995. Ch. 59 of the Acts of 2000, effective October 1, 2000. Thus, the statute purported to apply retroactively, and to limit the plaintiff's claims for late fees during the five-year retroactive period to those amounts exceeding the new statutory limit. The Dua plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of this retroactive provision as depriving them of vested rights. Dua, 370 Md. at 611, 805 A.2d at 1065. Holding that a cause of action can be the type of vested right constitutionally protected, the Dua Court said: Although there may not ordinarily be a constitutionally protected vested property right in a particular ... cause of action accruing after a statute limits or abrogates the cause of action, Johnson v. Maryland State Police, 331 Md. 285, 298-99, 628 A.2d 162, 168 (1993), there normally is a vested property right in a cause of action which has accrued prior to the legislative action. This Court has consistently held that the Maryland Constitution ordinarily precludes the Legislature (1) from retroactively abolishing an accrued cause of action, thereby depriving the plaintiff of a vested right, and (2) from retroactively creating a cause of action, or reviving a barred cause of action, thereby violating the vested right of the defendant. Id. at 632-33, 805 A.2d at 1073. The Dua Court concluded that retroactive application of the new statutes, so as to limit liability, was unconstitutional: Whether [the statutes] are viewed as statutes abrogating petitioners' right to particular sums of money, or as statutes abrogating causes of action in pending cases, or as both (which is probably the most accurate description), the retrospective portions of both statutes clearly deprived petitioners of vested rights. Consequently, those portions are invalid under Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights and Article III, § 40, of the Maryland Constitution. Id. at 642, 805 A.2d at 1083. Under Dua, vested rights protected by the Maryland Constitution include both causes of action and rights to a particular sum of money. Here, the trier of fact has determined that the plaintiff suffered injuries and deserved compensation in amount that was many multiples of the amount allowed under the statutory damages cap. Application of a damages cap deprives a person of compensation, just as abrogating a cause of action does. For this reason, most courts that have considered the issue disallowed retroactive application of a statutory damages cap. See Socorro v. New Orleans, 579 So.2d 931 (La.1991) (rejecting approach adopted by some lower courts in which damages over a statutory cap were viewed as mere expectancies and not vested rights.); Klotz v. St. Anthony's Med. Ctr., 311 S.W.3d 752, 760 (Mo.2010) (when a statute purports to decrease the amount of damages a victim of medical malpractice could recover after the cause of action has accrued, this Court is bound [] to find the statute unconstitutional[.]); Blair v. McDonagh, 177 Ohio App.3d 262, 894 N.E.2d 377, 391 (2008)(a court cannot apply [punitive damages cap] to causes of action that arose before the statute's effective date); Estate of Bell v. Shelby County Health Care Corp., 318 S.W.3d 823, 833 (Tn.2010) (the rights of the plaintiff vest or accrue with the commission of the tort and may not then be subjected to later damage limitations); Gibson v. Commonwealth, 490 Pa. 156, 415 A.2d 80 (1980) (prohibiting retroactive application of sovereign immunity statute which included damage limitations); [25] Martin by Scoptur v. Richards, 192 Wis.2d 156, 531 N.W.2d 70, 89-92 (1995) (retroactive application of damages cap to plaintiffs injured before enactment would impermissibly impair that right); [26] Indeed, the Supreme Court of Tennessee, in adopting this position, has already cited favorably to the Court of Special Appeal's opinion. Estate of Bell, 318 S.W.3d at 832 n. 16 (The Maryland Court of Special Appeals [has] reached the same conclusion applying constitutional provisions expressly proscribing retrospective laws.). [27] To be sure, applying a damage cap does not vitiate a person's remedy altogether. Moreover, there was no particular sum that Longtin had a right to when the statute was changed; it had not yet been determined by the jury. We are not persuaded, though, that these distinctions disqualify Longtin's accrued right to recover damages from the constitutional protections against retroactive application of laws. As one Florida court concluded: We see no reason why a different result should obtain [with regard to damage caps] merely because the retroactive law limits the amount of recovery and does not completely abolish the cause of action. A vested right is not any less impaired in the eyes of the law merely because the impairment is partial. Kaisner v. Kolb, 543 So.2d 732, 739 (Fla. 1989). [28] Nor can we discern any logical rationale why, under our constitution, we should permit retroactive application of a statute requiring a reduction in damages recovered by a successful plaintiff when we deny retroactive abolishment of the cause of action. Our constitutional precedent recognizes that a person's rights shall not be impaired by later-enacted legislation. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Kim, 376 Md. 276, 296, 829 A.2d 611, 622 (2003) (As Dua makes clear, the standard for determining whether retroactive legislation violates Art. 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights or Art. III, § 40 of the Maryland Constitution is whether it abrogates or significantly impairs `vested rights.') (emphasis added). It is patent that the enormous loss to Longtin from application of the statutory cap would impair his cause of action. Accordingly, we agree with the Court of Special Appeals that Longtin had a vested right in bringing his cause of action  with no statutory cap on damages  prior to the enactment of the LGTCA revisions. Although the legislature may, in its wisdom, limit tort damages prospectively, see, e.g., Murphy v. Edmonds 325 Md. 342, 601 A.2d 102 (1992) (upholding statutory cap on noneconomic tort damages which applied prospectively), the constitution protects against retroactive application of these limitations. The LGTCA's limits, therefore, do not apply to the jury award in this case.