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Salvagno v. Frew6/10/2005
h would be wholly inconsistent with the very purpose of the final judgment rule, which is to avoid piecemeal appeals that create inefficiencies in both the appellate and trial courts: "The mere allegation that a clearly interlocutory order is jurisdictionally deficient should not serve to halt proceedings in the trial court while an appellate court considers whether the allegation has merit." Maryland State Board of Education v. Bradford, supra, Md. at, A.2d at . The wisdom of that approach is apodictic in this case. On May 12, 2003, the Circuit Court directed that the case, involving a claim of only $25,000, proceed. Two years later, the case is still in limbo because of these appeals - fourteen months in the Court of Special Appeals and six months, counting from the granting of certiorari, in this Court, all because of a questionable allegation regarding the Circuit Court's jurisdiction to nullify the HCAO award and proceed on the Complaint.
Was There An Award?
In Alfred Munzer, M.D., P.A. v. Ramsey, supra, 63 Md. App. 350, 492 A.2d 946, a claim was made against five health care providers, and an arbitration panel was appointed to hear the claim. Prior to any arbitration, the chairman of the panel, acting alone, signed an order granting "summary judgment" in favor of one of the providers, upon concluding that there was no liability on the part of that provider to the claimant. No costs were assessed and, although copies of the order were sent to the parties, the original order was never delivered to the HCAO Director. The case against the other providers proceeded but was eventually settled and, as a result of the settlement, dismissed. No award of any kind was made with respect to them.
The claimant then rejected the award in favor of the one provider and filed an action in Circuit Court seeking, in the alternative, either nullification or a remand to the panel to proceed with the arbitration. The Circuit Court concluded that there was no award to nullify and that it had no jurisdiction in the matter, and it ordered the case remanded to HCAO. The Court of Special Appeals believed likewise and directed that the Circuit Court action be dismissed without prejudice, to permit the arbitration to proceed.
In reaching that conclusion, the Court of Special Appeals did not resolve whether the panel chair had the authority to enter a "summary judgment," and, indeed, it confirmed an earlier holding in Stifler v. Weiner, 62 Md. App. 19, 488 A.2d 192 (1985), cert. denied, 304 Md. 96, 497 A.2d 819 (1985), that a panel chair did have authority to enter summary awards in certain situations. Rather, it held that, whether the panel chair was right or wrong, no award was ever made. An award, it said, must not only resolve the issues of liability and damages but also assess the costs of arbitration and be delivered to the HCAO Director. In the Munzer case, there was no assessment of costs and, as noted, the order was never delivered to the Director. Until that was done, the court added, the order was entirely interlocutory and subject to change by the panel chair.
The case before us is quite different, in part because of changes in the legal landscape. For one thing, as we have observed, it is now clear that the panel chair may resolve issues of law and "decide all prehearing procedures including issues relating to discovery." CJP § 3-2A-05(a)(1) and (c). The dismissal ordered here was a sanction for what the panel chair believed was the failure to provide discovery as required in her scheduling order. In that regard, we note that CJP § 3-2A-02(d) makes the Maryland Rules applicable to "all practice and procedure issues arising under this subtitle," that CJP § 3-2A-05(b)(2)
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