December 2023 Maryland Certiorari Grant
On December 18th, the Supreme Court of Maryland granted review in one civil appeal and also added an election law direct appeal to its February argument calendar. The certiorari grant and information related to the election appeal is below.
Read More…Stillbirth or Murder, and the Evidence of Internet Searches Regarding Abortion
In Akers v. State (September Term 2022, No. 0925), the Appellate Court of Maryland will decide, among other issues, whether information about abortion, pregnancy ambivalence, and lack of prenatal care is relevant to determining how the death of an infant occurred. The question is important and novel as it implicates a woman’s reproductive rights in the context of a criminal case post–Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The facts of the case: The case arose out of Moira Akers’ unplanned pregnancy and death of her infant. Akers gave birth to an infant boy at her house. According to her, the child was stillborn. According to the State, the child was born alive and Ms. Akers suffocated her child. She was charged in the Circuit Court for Howard County with murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, and child abuse resulting in death. Following a jury trial, Ms. Akers was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. The case is pending before the Appellate Court of Maryland.
Read More…Court of Appeals to Review New Expert-Testimony Requirement for Medical Malpractice Defendants Asserting “Empty Chair” Defense
Although it is well-established Maryland law that a medical negligence plaintiff must support her claim with expert testimony, the Court of Special Appeals recently issued the first Maryland appellate decision to hold that defendants have the same obligation when asserting an “empty chair” defense. Reiss v. Am. Radiology Servs., LLC, 241 Md. App. 316 (2019). The well-established “empty chair” defense asserts that a non-party’s negligence caused the alleged injury.[i] Under Reiss, those asserting the defense now must elicit “expert testimony, to a reasonable degree of medical probability, that the non-party breached the standard of care.”[ii]
Although the rule announced in Reiss is relatively straightforward, the holding’s full implications remain unclear for litigants in medical negligence cases. The Court of Appeals may address these issues on February 6 at oral argument in Reiss. The court can resolve an important unanswered question: Can defendants elicit the testimony from a properly qualified plaintiff’s expert? The Court of Special Appeals’ reasoning in Reiss and existing Maryland law should allow it. Read More…
Live Webcast of the En Banc Fourth Circuit’s Oral Arguments in the Emoluments Case to Begin at 9 a.m. Today
Earlier this week, Blog Editor Derek Stikeleather wrote of In re Trump, the emoluments case brought against President Trump by the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia. Due to public interest, the oral arguments will be webcast live (audio only), starting at 9 a.m. this morning.
The Fourth Circuit Emoluments Case Proceeds En Banc: A Non-Partisan Guide for Lawyers
On December 12, the en banc Fourth Circuit will re-hear oral argument in the “emoluments” case brought against President Trump by the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia. They allege that his ongoing business interests in the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. violate the Constitution’s Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses. In July, a three-judge panel of the court unanimously held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring a lawsuit to enforce the Emoluments Clauses, and it remanded the case to be dismissed with prejudice. In re Trump, 928 F.3d 360 (4th Cir. 2019). Despite the unanimous panel ruling, a majority of the court’s active (i.e., non-senior status) judges voted to allow rehearing en banc. 780 F. App’x 36 (4th Cir. 2019).
The case is genuinely newsworthy for many reasons. Read More…
Pirates and Piracy: The Supreme Court Will Examine Whether States are Immune from Copyright Infringement Claims in a Dispute Over Blackbeard’s Shipwreck
By John Grimm
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that will determine whether Congress can abrogate states’ sovereign immunity with respect to copyright infringement claims. Allen v. Cooper, No. 18-877. The case arises out of an underwater research expedition to document and salvage the wreck of Blackbeard’s ship off the coast of North Carolina. The salvage team alleges that, without permission, North Carolina published some of the team’s footage on the internet, violating its copyright in the footage.
Lamone v. Benisek: Round Three in the Supreme Court for Partisan Gerrymandering Challenges to Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on March 26, 2019 for the third time in the ongoing legal challenge to the 2011 changes in Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District. Lamone v. Benisek, No. 18-726 (“Benisek”).[1] Boundary changes to the Sixth District were made after the 2010 census, and Appellees in Benisek successfully challenged before a three-judge panel of the federal district court below the changes as retaliation for their voting as Republicans in the Sixth District during past general elections. Benisek will be argued in conjunction with Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422 (“Rucho”), in which, in addition to the First Amendment grounds asserted in Benisek, Appellees successfully challenged before another three-judge court, on Equal Protection grounds, South Carolina’s Congressional redistricting after the 2010 census.[2] Read More…
The Democracy Canon and the Oaks Ballot Dispute
By Steve Klepper (Twitter: @MDAppeal)[*]
The Maryland high court is about to hear, on emergency briefing, the appeal in Lamone v. Lewin. The administrator of the State Board of Elections is challenging the April 26 injunction requiring that former state senator Nathaniel Oaks’ name be removed from the June primary ballot.
The Court granted certiorari on Friday. The parties filed opening briefs on Monday and reply briefs on Tuesday, with arguments Wednesday. The briefs are available here.
The briefing is superb on both sides. Julia Doyle Bernhardt and Andrea Trento, with the Office of the Attorney General, and Mark Sitchel and Elizabeth Harlan, representing the challengers, did top-flight work on a frantic schedule. The quality of briefing should make the Court’s job easier, but the ultimate choice is a difficult one. Read More…
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…
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.
Maryland Appellate Blog 