Court Opinion

ID: 9703081
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:38:56.739058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:45.407063
License: Public Domain

ELDRIDGE, Judge,
dissenting:
I agree with the part of the Court’s opinion which holds that res judicata would bar the Dills’ personal injury claim unless Md.Code (1957, 1979 Repl. Vol., 1985 Cum.Supp.), Art. 48A, § 384B, creates a limited exception to the res *217judicata doctrine. I disagree entirely, however, with the majority’s interpretation of § 348B.
I believe that the Legislature, in enacting § 384B, intended to split an injured party’s cause of action for personal injury and property damage arising out of the same motor vehicle accident. The statute achieves this purpose by dividing the personal injury and property damage cause of action into different causes of action, allowing the injured party to have them separately resolved.
The statute refers to the personal injury and property damage “claims” as separate. This Court has repeatedly said that a “claim” encompasses at least a cause of action. Group Health Ass’n v. Blumenthal, 295 Md. 104, 112, 453 A.2d 1198 (1983); Biro v. Schombert, 285 Md. 290, 295, 402 A.2d 71 (1979); Suitland Dev. v. Merchants Mort., 254 Md. 43, 54, 254 A.2d 359 (1969). Thus, in making personal injury and property damage separate “claims,” the statute splits them into separate causes of action.
Section 384B was designed to encourage the speedy resolution of motor vehicle property damage claims while personal injury claims are still pending. This prevents self-insured defendants and insurers from using the property damage claim as leverage to force an injured party to settle unfavorably a personal injury claim. The statute does not limit the time for settlement of the property damage claim to only that period before a claim for personal injury is filed. Rather, by its terms, the statute provides that settlement for the property damage claim shall not be delayed because the plaintiff “has a claim pending for bodily injury which may have arisen from the same ... accident.” The majority’s interpretation not only discourages settlement of a property damage claim, but works to prevent it. Under the majority’s holding, if an injured claimant and an insurer were to settle a property damage claim after suit was instituted, with the settlement embodied in a judgment, res judicata would bar the injured party from pursuing his *218personal injury claim. This is precisely the situation which § 384B was designed to remedy.
The majority’s interpretation of § 384B largely renders the statute useless. Therefore I dissent.
Judge SMITH has authorized me to state that he concurs with the views expressed herein.