Schneider Electric: The Surety’s Word Is Its Bond; Not So Its Incorporation of the Words of Its Principal
Language in a surety’s performance bond incorporating, without limitation, the provisions of its principal’s subcontract is not sufficient to bind the surety to the arbitration requirements of the subcontract, according to the Court of Special Appeals in Schneider Elec. Bldgs. Critical Systems, Inc. v. Western Surety Co., 231 Md. App. 27 (2016), cert. granted, 2017 Md. LEXIS 137 and 277 (Feb. 3 and Mar. 3, 2017) (“Schneider Electric”) (video of oral argument available here). Read More…
June 2017 Maryland Certiorari Grants
The Court of Appeals granted certiorari in six cases yesterday. They’re a grab-bag of criminal law, civil procedure (judicial estoppel), administrative law, and takings law. The six grants, along with two earlier standalone grants we didn’t cover in prior posts, are after the jump. Read More…
Many thanks to Ocean City SCOTUS panel
By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)
This past weekend was my first time moderating the annual Supreme Court term-in-review panel in Ocean City, as part of the MSBA’s Annual Meeting. I had the pleasure of introducing Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, Jim Feldman of the University of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Law Clinic, and Catherine M.A. Carroll of WilmerHale. Read More…
14 Nominated for Court of Special Appeals: June 2017
Governor Hogan will be picking from 14 candidates to fill the at-large seat on the Court of Special Appeals vacated by the recent retirement of Chief Judge Peter B. Krauser. The nominations were announced last week and were chosen from an impressive list of lawyers and judges who applied in April. Eight of the candidates were automatically advanced because they had been previously recommended for the Court by the Judicial Appellate Nominating Commission. Five of the nominees are sitting circuit court judges.
Adnan Syed and How to Solve the Court of Special Appeals Public-Access Problem
By Michael Wein
The Maryland judiciary website posted last Wednesday about the Syed case guidelines for the public and news media interested in attending oral arguments. As noted in the detailed order by new Chief Judge Patrick Woodward, oral arguments are being held in Courtroom 1 on the second floor of the Courts of Appeal Building in Annapolis (the larger of the two courtrooms regularly used by the Court of Special Appeals). Courthouse security is taking significant protections against recording devices, and limited seating is being provided to the public and media.
This post is not about the Syed case, specifically. But the circumstances of the Syed oral arguments expose a lack of proper public access to any of the intermediate appellate court’s oral arguments, in noted contrast with the Court of Appeals.[1] Syed is quite obviously a highlighted, media-interest case, which poses an opportunity to discuss what procedures Maryland’s intermediate appellate court should consider, in at least the future, to accommodate public interest in specific, important oral arguments.
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