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Housing Authority of Baltimore City v. Bennett6/6/2000
ord "including" with reference to liability for judgments against employees, should be construed as also applying to all tort judgments directly against local governments and agencies regardless of the basis for such judgments. As previously discussed, the only liability mentioned in §§ 5-301 through 5-303 is liability to provide a defense in tort actions against employees, liability to pay judgments in tort actions against employees, and liability to indemnify employees. Furthermore, limitations upon liability in a governmental tort claims act ordinarily relate to the liability created by or expressly dealt with in that tort claims act. The only liabilities created by the LGTCA or expressly dealt with in the LGTCA concern tort suits against government employees.
Viewing the monetary cap provision in the context of the entire Ch. 594 of the Acts of 1987, which, inter alia, enacted the LGTCA, it would be a reasonable construction of Ch. 594 to extend the LGTCA's monetary caps to tort actions directly against local governments or agencies thereof when the authorizations for such tort actions were locally enacted ordinances or charter provisions. It would not be a reasonable construction of the statutory language, however, to apply the monetary caps to tort actions directly against local governments when the bases for such actions are enactments of the General Assembly, state common law, the state constitution, or federal law.
This dichotomy between locally enacted law and state law is reflected in the uncodified § 2 of Ch. 594 and in that portion of § 1 of Ch. 594 which repealed the Express Powers Act's caps when charter counties themselves waived governmental immunity. Unlike a typical clause repealing prior inconsistent laws, which repeals all prior inconsistent laws, § 2 of Ch. 594 repealed only inconsistent laws and charter provisions "enacted by a local government." Consequently, the inconsistent monetary cap for housing authorities' tort liability, enacted by the General Assembly in Art. 44A of the Maryland Code, was plainly not affected by Ch. 594. Ch. 594 also repealed the monetary caps in the Express Powers Act when charter counties waive governmental tort immunity. These monetary caps, for locally enacted waivers of immunity, were inconsistent with the monetary caps in the LGTCA. The General Assembly, however, repealed no other state law relating to tort actions against local governments.
The provisions of Ch. 594 strongly suggest a legislative intent that the substantive sections of the LGTCA, including the monetary caps, apply to the actions against employees expressly dealt with in the LGTCA and also to actions directly against local governments which are authorized under locally enacted law. By the uncodified portions of Ch. 594, the General Assembly seemed to intend that the monetary caps set forth in the LGTCA take the place of any different monetary caps contained in locally enacted law. Thus, if a home rule county or a municipality by charter provision or ordinance waives its governmental tort immunity, the monetary caps in the LGTCA would appear to apply. The provisions of Ch. 594 also reflect a legislative intent, however, that, except for actions against local governmental employees, Ch. 594 did not affect tort actions under state law. The Legislature made a point of not repealing provisions of state law such as Art. 44A which, as construed in Jackson v. Housing Opp. Comm'n, supra, contains an entirely different monetary cap.
B.
The Authority also argues that the legislative history of the LGTCA shows a legislative intent to cap the liability of local governments for all judgments in tort actions brought either against them or against th
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