Court Opinion

ID: 9651274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:12:25.833457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:44.325703
License: Public Domain

*553CHASANOW, Judge,
concurring.
In Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. 342, 601 A.2d 102 (1992), the Court held that Maryland Code (1974, 1989 Repl.Vol.), Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article, § 11-108 (the cap statute) “[did] not implicate such an important ‘right’ as to trigger any enhanced scrutiny.” Id. at 362, 601 A.2d at 111. Instead, the Court subjected the statute only to rational basis review. I dissented in Murphy because I believed that “the right to recover full and fair compensation from a tortfeasor is an important personal right, and any limitation on that right should be subject to ‘heightened’ or ‘intermediate’ scrutiny.” Id. at 379, 601 A.2d at 120 (Chasanow, J., dissenting). I believed then, and still do, that
“legislation limiting recovery of noneconomic damages might survive such heightened scrutiny [required by Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights] if applied in medical malpractice cases, but it should not survive heightened scrutiny in motor vehicle tort actions or other tort actions where there has been no clearly established need for such legislation.”

Id.

If, as the majority holds in the instant case, the legislature intended the cap statute to limit the noneconomic damage recovery of actual tort victims, but to give unlimited recovery for noneconomic damages to the families of deceased tort victims, this further indicates that the cap statute should not survive heightened scrutiny under Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. It should not even pass the rational basis test.
The effect of the majority’s opinion in the instant case is that, if six year-old Marc Streidel had survived his injury, but had brain damage and been rendered a quadriplegic, he could only recover a maximum of $350,000 for the pain, anguish, and suffering of having to endure perhaps sixty-plus years in that state. Since Marc died, however, there is no noneconomic damage limitation, and Marc’s parents can *554recover $1,000,000 ($500,000 each) for their suffering and anguish. If the legislature intended to resolve the liability insurance crisis by such an inequitable limitation on noneconomic damages, it further reinforces my view that the cap statute, except in the medical malpractice area, denies seriously injured tort victims equal protection of law.
The cap statute is aimed at reducing high noneconomic damage awards that will have to be paid by medical malpractice and automobile liability insurance carriers. Putting aside my views on the cap statute’s constitutional deficiencies, it seems to me that the legislature must have intended the phrase “[i]n any action for damages for personal injury,” as used in the cap statute, to include wrongful death actions. The noneconomic damages of the primary tort victim, the person physically injured by the tortfeasor, are at least as deserving of full compensation as the noneconomic damages of the secondary victim, the wrongful death plaintiff. In Forbes v. Harleysville Mutual, 322 Md. 689, 589 A.2d 944 (1991), this Court construed Maryland Code (1957, 1991 Repl.Vol.), Article 48A, § 541(c)(2) which statutorily mandates uninsured motorist coverage. We held that the legislature intended that the phrase “damages which the insured is entitled to recover ... because of bodily injuries,” should be construed to include wrongful death claims by survivors. Id. at 695-701, 589 A.2d at 947-49. The legislative intent to include wrongful death claims in the phrase “personal injury” in the instant case seems even stronger than the legislative intent to include wrongful death claims in the phrase “bodily injuries” as construed in Forbes.
We may glean some indication of legislative intent from the legislature’s acquiescence in decisions construing the cap statute. In 1989, the Court of Special Appeals held that “personal injury,” as used in the cap statute, should include wrongful death actions. Potomac Electric v. Smith, 79 Md.App. 591, 619-23, 558 A.2d 768, 783-85 (1989). This Court denied certiorari in Potomac Electric the same year. Potomac Electric v. Smith, 317 Md. 393, 564 A.2d 407 *555(1989). Within a year, two separate reported decisions of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland held that the cap statute included wrongful death claims. Bartucco v. Wright, 746 F.Supp. 604 (D.Md.1990) (Garbis, J.); Simms v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 746 F.Supp. 596 (D.Md.1990) (Smalkin, J.). That same year the Fourth Circuit held that the $350,000 Maryland statutory cap on noneconomic damages applied to wrongful death actions. Searle v. United States, 900 F.2d 255 (4th Cir.1990) (unpublished opinion); see also United States v. Searle, 322 Md. 1, 584 A.2d 1263 (1991) (where other aspects of the Searle decision were certified to this Court). Thus, by 1990, every decision construing the cap statute held that the cap was applicable to wrongful death claims. These decisions must have reduced the recoveries of many subsequent wrongful death plaintiffs. The legislature obviously realized that courts throughout the State were applying the cap to non-economic damages in wrongful death actions and, for several years, the legislature has acquiesced in that construction. Where the legislature has acquiesced in the judicial construction of a statute, there is a strong presumption that the intention of the legislature has been correctly interpreted. Such legislative acquiescence should not be judicially altered. See Stewart v. State, 275 Md. 258, 270, 340 A.2d 290, 297 (1975); Shriner v. Mullhausen, 210 Md. 104, 115, 122 A.2d 570, 575 (1956); Nutwell v. Sup. of Elections, 205 Md. 338, 343, 108 A.2d 149, 151 (1954).
I doubt that the legislature intended that the entire burden of reducing insurance costs should fall solely on primary tort victims, rather than be shared with secondary victims such as wrongful death plaintiffs. The majority’s holding that the cap statute limits recovery for the pain, anguish, and suffering of primary tort victims, but permits unlimited recovery for the pain and anguish of secondary tort victims, only reinforces my view that, except in medical malpractice cases, the cap statute denies severely injured tort victims equal protection of law.