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Powell v. Erb5/22/1998
Pursuant to the Maryland Uniform Certification of Questions of Law Act, Maryland Code (1974,1989 Repl. Vol.), 12-601 to 12-609 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland has certified to this Court a question concerning the scope of our holding in Hauch v. Conner, 295 Md. 120, 295 A.2d 1207 (1983). Presented in that case was a choice of law question, "whether Maryland residents, who sustained injuries in an automobile accident in Delaware while temporarily there in furtherance of their employer's business, and who claimed no benefits under the Delaware workmen's compensation law, may maintain in Maryland courts a personal injury action against the co-employee who operated the employer's automobile in which the plaintiffs were passengers." Id. at 121, 295 A.2d at 1208. We answered the question in the affirmative. Faced with the situation in which Maryland permitted an employee injured because of the negligence of a fellow employee, to bring a personal injury action against that co-employee where Delaware did not, the Court made clear that the relevant choice of law principles were those of workers' compensation law, rather than tort law, and that the choice of law decision turned on the determination of which jurisdiction had the greater interest. Id. at 133, 295 A.2d at 1214. Accordingly, the certified question seeks to determine whether the legal analysis applied in Hauch is equally applicable in wrongful death actions.
I
The litigation in the federal court arose out of an airplane crash in Pennsylvania. Frederick G. Erb, a pilot for K & L Microwave, Inc., ("K & L") a company based in Salisbury, Maryland, piloted a private airplane belonging to that company's parent corporation. On March 18, 1994, the plane, a Piper Aerostar 601P, departed from the Salisbury Airport in Maryland, where it was regularly hangered and routinely kept for the business use of K & L, on a scheduled trip to a temporary work site in Pennsylvania. John Powell, Sr. and James Cooper, also employees of K & L, were passengers. The plane landed at the Airport in Pottstown, Pennsylvania uneventfully; however, the plane crashed while attempting a take off from that Airport, in bad weather, for the return to Maryland, apparently the result of ice adhering to one or both of the wings of the plane. Erb and Powell were killed. Cooper was seriously injured, but he survived the crash.
Powell is survived by a wife and two children who, along with Powell's estate, filed a wrongful death action in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, against Erb's estate, K&L;and its parent corporation. Cooper and his wife sued the same parties for personal injury . Central to both cases were allegations that Erb's negligence was the cause of the injuries suffered, the death of Powell and the serious personal injuries suffered by Cooper. The cases were consolidated for trial. Pursuant to the plaintiffs' Joint Motion for Determination of Applicability of Maryland Law, opposed by the defendants, the District Court signed the Certification Order forwarding the certified questions presently being considered by this Court.
At the time of his death, Powell was a resident of the State of Maryland. So, too, were, and are, his wife and children. Although they initially applied for benefits from the Pennsylvania State Workers' Compensation Commission, they withdrew that application and subsequently applied for and received Maryland State Workers' Compensation benefits. On the date of the airplane crash, Cooper and his wife were residents of the State of Delaware; however, Cooper daily reported to work at K&L;s office in
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