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Landon v. Zorn10/6/2005
und for the defendants, Borkoski requested a new trial, alleging he had been denied a fair and impartial jury by the denial of his voir dire motion. Id. The Borkoski court affirmed the trial court, but acknowledged that the trial court should have allowed the inquiries to determine juror bias or prejudice. The court stated:
e hold that in appropriate cases an attorney upon voir dire may inquire of prospective jurors whether they have any business relationship with insurance companies and whether they are policyholders of an insurance company named as a defendant or of a mutual insurance company involved in the case. We further hold that, upon a proper showing of possible prejudice, an attorney may inquire whether a prospective juror has heard or read anything to indicate that jury verdicts for plaintiffs in personal injury cases result in higher insurance premiums for everyone; if so, whether the prospective juror believes such materials; and if so, whether that belief will interfere with the juror's ability to render a fair and impartial verdict.
Borkoski, 594 P.2d at 694.
The Court of Special Appeals considered Borkoski, but declined to adopt its holdings. The intermediate appellate court noted that it was necessary to view Borkoski within the context of Maryland's voir dire jurisprudence, which supports voir dire as a tool for discovering information that would disqualify jurors and "support challenges for cause, and not for assisting in the exercise of peremptory challenges." Williams, 98 Md. App. at 217, 632 A.2d at 509. The Williams court noted that both our strong stance opposing the introduction of the issue of probable insurance coverage and the precedential effect of Kujawa, supra, would factor into the application of the Borkoski approach in Maryland. Williams, 98 Md. App. at 217, 632 A.2d at 509 (citing Morris v. Weddington, 320 Md. 674, 681, 579 A.2d 762, 765 (1990)) (other citations omitted). Ultimately, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that it was not necessary to decide if the Borkoski approach was authorized under Maryland law because the proposed voir dire questions were neither required under the Borkoski analysis nor required under Maryland law.
The Landons request that this Court "reconsider previous holdings in light of the political, social and judicial change in climate which has occurred since the time Williams was decided." In its amicus brief, the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association argues that the Court of Special Appeals "left open" the issue of Borkoski's application in the proposal of voir dire questions addressing tort reform. The Maryland Defense Counsel contends that, although the trial court in this case made the correct decision, we should take this opportunity to expand voir dire when an appropriate factual basis is proffered.
We decline the Landons' request to adopt the basic principles of Borkoski and to apply them to the facts of the case sub judice. The facts of this case do not warrant our expansion of the scope of voir dire in Maryland. Unlike the law of Montana, the scope of voir dire in Maryland is limited. The Landons' question can be distinguished from the question proposed in Borkoski, not only in its failure to address the issue of tort reform, but in its generality. See Williams, 98 Md. App. at 218, 632 A.2d at 509. The proposed question asks jurors about general bias against plaintiffs in lawsuits, and in malpractice cases in particular, and does not inquire about anything that can be construed as a tort reform issue. In their brief filed in this case, the Landons offered several unsubstantiated assertions regarding information that would have prejudiced jurors; however, the questions proposed did n
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