 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Smith v. Lead Industries Association4/4/2005
This is essentially a tort-based product liability case involving, among other causes of action, allegations of fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation and failure to warn of hazards associated with either the product itself or the use of the product. We granted certiorari to consider two principal questions: (1) whether injured minors can maintain an action for fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation when there is no direct reliance by them on the alleged misrepresentations; and (2) whether a manufacturer whose product is not itself harmful can be liable for failing to warn of hazards inherent in other products that may arise from the use of its product. Because it is now clear that no final or appealable judgment exists and that the Court of Special Appeals erred in declaring otherwise, we are obliged to direct that the appeal be dismissed without addressing those issues.
BACKGROUND
This is an action by seven minor plaintiffs against twenty-one defendants to recover for injuries sustained from exposure to lead contained in either paint or gasoline. The plaintiffs, who, through one or both of their respective parents, all joined in a single fifteen- count, 172-page complaint, come from four different families: there are three Smith children, one Brantley child, one Hamilton child, and two Shorter children. The defendants fall into one or more of four categories - those that produced tetraethyl lead (TeL), a gasoline additive that reduces knock in internal combustion engines; those that produced lead pigment used in manufacturing paint; paint manufacturers which either produced paint containing that pigment (lead paint) or which did not produce lead paint but failed to provide warnings regarding the safe removal of lead paint in their surface preparation instructions; and two trade organizations charged with promoting the use and unsafe removal of lead paint.
The action was filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. Early in the proceeding, the plaintiffs moved to sever the action into four separate cases, one for each family, or, in the alternative, to allow them to dismiss the action without prejudice in order that separate actions could be brought. The court denied that relief. Instead, it treated the motion as one for separate trials pursuant to Maryland Rule 2-503(b) and granted that relief. In a subsequent pre- trial scheduling order, the court set four separate trial dates - one for the Smith children, one for the Brantley child, one for the Hamilton child, and one for the Shorter children - and established different discovery schedules with respect to the quadrifurcated claims. Although that scheduling order was amended from time to time, the question of severance was never revisited, and the case proceeded in accordance with the ruling denying the motion for severance but granting separate trials on a per family basis. The effect of the court's ruling was to maintain the action as a unitary one, involving all plaintiffs against all defendants. See Blades v. Woods, 338 Md. 475, 659 A.2d 872 (1995). No complaint has been made in this appeal about the validity or propriety of that ruling.
The case then proceeded with a blizzard of motions to dismiss and for summary judgment, which ultimately were granted, in whole or in part. In August, 2001, the court denied a motion by Duron, Inc. to dismiss Count I of the Third Amended Complaint but "reassigned" Counts I, II, and III (Conspiracy, Concert of Action, and Aiding and Abetting) as part of the descriptive "Nature of the Action" appearing in preliminary paragraphs. The effect of that order was to dismiss those counts as substantive causes of action at least as to Duron.
On October 24, 2001, t
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|