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Chapman v. Kamara12/2/1997
tion was a prayer for a declaratory judgment that the State had violated the Maryland Constitution's guarantee of a minimum quality education to the "at-risk" students of Baltimore City schools. Montgomery County sought to intervene in each of the suits but was denied each time. The Court of Appeals ruled that any interest claimed by the County in the litigation against the State over the quality of Baltimore schools was "insufficient to bring its intervention motions within the ambit of Rule 2-214(a) ." Id. at 198. The County's concern that a verdict for the plaintiffs would cause an increase in State funding for Baltimore schools and a concomitant decrease in funding for Montgomery County schools was ruled "too remote and indefinite" to justify intervention, in that such a result was "contingent upon the happening of uncertain and speculative events." Id. A second claimed interest in avoiding the potential impact of a plaintiffs' verdict upon Montgomery County's own "at-risk" students was deemed to be "indirect, remote, and speculative," and a third interest in preventing an eventual overhaul of the current State-local educational financing blueprint was determined to be "based entirely on supposition and speculation." Id. at 199-200.
The Court of Appeals reached a similar result in Shenk. There, a shareholder in a savings and loan sought to intervene in receivership proceedings for the sole purpose of keeping herself informed as to any potentially adverse consequences that may arise in the future. The case concerned Rule 208, the precursor to current Rule 2-214. The Court found that the claimed interest was "merely speculative and affords no present basis upon which to become a party to the proceedings." 235 Md. at 326.
In Birdsong, we rejected appellant insurance company's argument that it had an interest in the litigation because the claim itself was inconsistent with the appellant's constant denial that the sole remaining defendant was covered under its policy. We did, however, make some comments as to the merits of appellant's argument. Plaintiffs had been rear-ended in their automobile by a commercial truck, and they sued multiple defendants. Appellant insured the owner of the truck and represented him in the litigation, but appellant denied coverage on the grounds that the driver was an agent of an independent contractor hired to refit the truck. The driver failed to file a responsive pleading, and a default judgment was entered against him. The plaintiffs later moved to dismiss all the other defendants besides the driver, and the motion was granted with consent. Thereafter, the insurer moved to intervene as a defendant out of concern that the plaintiffs would somehow win a judgment against the pro se driver that could later be enforced against it as insurer. We maintained in dicta that the asserted interest was "merely speculative" in that it "was predicated on the possible occurrence of two events: an award of damages against [the driver] and an attempt by the [plaintiffs] to enforce such an award against" the insurer. We felt that this interest would have been insufficient to support intervention as of right, had we reached the issue.
Not every case has involved so speculative an interest. In TKU, commercial property owners brought a suit against Montgomery County, seeking a declaration that a recent zoning alteration had not affected their development rights. Local residents sought to intervene, but their application was denied. The Court of Appeals took notice of the fact that the developers and the residents were already opposing parties in separate statutory appellate proceedings challenging the same zoning alteration. Even though the legal issues in the appeal were diff
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