Court Opinion

ID: 9543426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:45:31.238268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:20.089338
License: Public Domain

*740ROBERT M. BELL,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I continue to adhere to the views expressed in my dissenting opinion in Owens-Illinois v. Zenobia, 325 Md. 420, 478-86, 601 A.2d 633, 661-65 (1992).
The appellant argues, on the basis of the definition of actual malice this Court enunciated in Zenobia as applicable in products liability cases, that the Court recognized that “ ‘actual malice’ in its pure sense will be absent in any ‘non-intentional’ torts as the terms are close to being mutually exclusive.” Appellant’s Brief at 7. That, and the test it spawned, leads the appellant to formulate a similar test for intoxicated drivers:
a bad faith decision by the Defendant to voluntarily consume excessive amounts of alcohol, have knowledge of the danger associated with driving in this condition and in conscious and deliberate disregard of the threat to the safety of the other persons on the highway, drive.
Appellant’s Brief at 8. In other words, the appellant believes that, in an appropriate case, of which the case sub judice is one, the circumstances may be such that the legal equivalent of ill-will evil motive, and intention to injure may be inferred from an intoxicated driver’s conduct. I agree.