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Gooslin v. State5/31/2000
REPORTED
On May 31, 1994, appellant, Wyvonne Gooslin, was driving home after dropping off her son at school in Cecil County when a vehicle backed out from a driveway into the path of her vehicle. Though she attempted to avoid the collision by swerving and applying her brakes, her car hit the vehicle, which was owned by the State of Maryland and driven by one of its employees, Lisa Renee Snook, a nurse for Cecil County Health Department. Ms. Snook was making house calls, checking on maternal and infant health.
The trial, held in the Circuit Court for Cecil County, was limited to the issue of damages. The jury returned a verdict in the amount of $9,933 for medical expenses, $488 for "Econ. Damages" and $200,000 in "Non-econ. Damages." The trial judge granted the State's motion to "reduce damages" to $50,000, based upon the limitations of the Maryland Tort Claims Act ("MTCA"), which provided for a waiver of sovereign immunity limited to $50,000.
Appellant appeals, complaining that the MTCA acts as an unconstitutional restriction on the rights of injured persons to recover fair and adequate compensation for the negligent acts of State employees. She argues (1) that the MTCA violates Article 19 of the Maryland Constitution by acting as an unreasonable restriction on the right to a remedy "by the course of the Law of the land," and (2), that the MTCA violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by limiting the amount of money recoverable against the State, while not providing for a similar limitation as against private individuals. Finding neither argument persuasive, we affirm the trial court.
Appellant first argues that the Legislature has arbitrarily and unreasonably limited the amount of recovery by persons injured because of the negligence of State employees, placing such persons in an unequal position when compared with persons injured by private citizens. This inequality, argues appellant, is an unreasonable restriction on appellant's right to a remedy "by the course of the Law of the land," in violation of Article 19 of the Maryland Constitution, which states:
hat every man, for an injury done to him in his person or property, ought to have a remedy by the course of the Law of the land, and ought to have justice and right, freely without sale, fully without denial, and speedily without delay, according to the Law of the land.
The phrase, "law of the land," means due process of law. Hill v. Fitzgerald, 304 Md. 689, 702, 501 A.2d 27 (1985).
Appellant concedes that reasonable restrictions on the right to remedies have been upheld by the Court of Appeals where that Court found there to be a "legitimate object" for the restriction. Attorney General v. Johnson, 282 Md. 274, 310-13, 385 A.2d 57 (1978), rev'd on other grounds, Newell v. Richards, 323 Md. 717, 734, 594 A.2d 1152 (1991) (the submission of malpractice claims to an arbitration panel as a condition precedent to resort to a court of law held not to violate equal protection); Johnson v. Maryland State Police, 331 Md. 285, 296-98, 628 A.2d 162 (1993) (MTCA 180-day filing requirement held not to violate equal protection requirements, though it permitted dismissal of a suit where the 180-day claim-filing deadline had been exceeded); Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. 342, 601 A.2d 102 (1992) ($350,000 cap on non-economic damages in personal injury actions held not to violate Article 19 of the Maryland Constitution).
In Murphy, supra, 325 Md. at 365, the Court of Appeals wrote:
. . . Article 19 does guarantee access to the courts, but that access is subject to reasonable regulation. A st
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