Eisenhardt v. Papa

Wilner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. We are asked here to resolve a conflict among two principals and four principles. The principles, each clear and well set out in the law, concern the finality, "reviewability,” and revision of judgments. They are: FIRST: A judgment entered by a court that had no "jurisdiction” to enter it is absolutely void.

Such a judgment, said the Court in Fooks’ Executors v. Ghingher, 172 Md. 612, 619 (1937), "may be attacked anywhere, at any time, by any person affected by it. .. ,” it being but "a dead limb upon the judicial tree.” SECOND: After a judgment has become enrolled, a trial court is without authority to vacate or revise it except for fraud, mistake, or irregularity. This maxim is directly stated in Maryland Rule 625 a which, the Court said in Eliason v. Comm’r of Personnel, 230 Md. 56, 59 (1962), "embraces all the power the courts of this State have to revise and control enrolled judgments and decrees.” THIRD: A trial court has no authority to modify a judgment after that judgment has been affirmed on appeal, for that would involve modifying the ruling of a higher court. See Buffín v. Hernandez, 44 Md. App. 247 (1979), and cases cited therein. FOURTH: A trial court’s refusal to vacate an unenrolled judgment, rendered on the merits, is not ordinarily appealable.

Three reasons have been cited for this: (1) under Maryland Rule 625 a, a trail court’s revisory power prior to enrollment is purely a discretionary one that will not ordinarily be disturbed by an appellate court; (2) the proper way to test the correctness or validity of the court’s action is to appeal from the judgment itself and not from a refusal to vacate it; and (3) to permit an appellant to challenge the judgment indirectly by appealing the court’s refusal to vacate it would, in most cases, serve to emasculate the statutory requirement that appeals be noted within 30 days of the entry of judgment. See Gold Dust Corp. v. Zabawa, 159 ³⁷⁷ Md. 664 (1930); Tilghman v. Riggs National Bank, 261 Md. 306 (1971); Hardy v. Metis, 282 Md. 1 (1978). 1 Compare First Federated Com. Tr. v. Comm’r, 272 Md. 329, 333 (1974), dealing with the appealability of an order refusing to strike an enrolled decree. We are required to consider and sort out these principles, and a few others, because of the unusual posture in which this case reaches us.

This is an appeal from a refusal by the Circuit Court of Baltimore City to vacate an unenrolled amended decree (compare fourth principle), in which the record suggests that, in entering the amended decree, the court revised (in effect, annulled) a previously enrolled decree (i) in the absence of any showing of fraud, mistake, or irregularity (compare second principle) and (ii) after that decree had been affirmed by this Court on a direct appeal (compare third principle). On this basis, appellant contends that the court was without jurisdiction to enter the amended decree, that such decree is therefore absolutely void, and that it may properly be attacked on appeal from the trial court’s refusal to vacate it (see first principle). The genesis of this case was an action for specific performance filed by appellant on August 4, 1977, in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. He alleged, and proved, that appellees had agreed to sell him, on an installment basis, a parcel of land in Baltimore City of which he had been a lessee and on which he conducted a used car business.

The bone of contention between the parties at the time concerned (1) a collateral debt owed to appellees by appellant, evidenced by two confessed judgment notes, which appellees ³⁷⁸ insisted be paid before they delivered a deed to the property, and (2) appellant’s claim to a share of certain insurance proceeds received by appellees by reason of fire damage to the property, which share he sought to deduct from the unpaid purchase price. These matters came before the court in its consideration of appellant’s bill for specific performance and money damages. 2 After trial, the court determined that appellant was entitled to specific performance; and, on February 22, 1978, it issued a decree (1) ordering appellees to give to appellant a deed to the property upon payment of the unpaid purchase price of $20,103, (2) directing that all settlement expenses be borne by appellant, (3) ordering that taxes and other public charges be adjusted as of August 30, 1976, and be borne by appellant, and (4) dismissing appellant’s claim for monetary losses, without providing for any apportionment of the fire insurance proceeds. Appellees appealed from that decree, primarily on the ground that the chancellor had failed to give proper account to appellant’s default under the collateral confessed judgment notes in ordering specific performance. Appellant did not cross-appeal.

In an unreported per curiam Opinion filed January 19,1979, this Court affirmed the decree (Papa, et ux. v. Eisenhardt, No. 290, Sept. Term, 1978). Our mandate (following denial of a motion for reconsideration) was issued on February 21, 1979. On June 4,1979, appellees filed a petition with the Circuit Court to modify the decree. They alleged, in essence, that following the mandate of this Court, they had attempted to arrange for settlement of the property in accordance with the decree of specific performance, and were ready, willing, and able at all times thereafter to conclude settlement in accordance with that decree, but that appellant refused to ³⁷⁹ conclude settlement except upon extraneous and unacceptable conditions. 3 As a result, they asked the court to modify the decree by eliminating therefrom the requirement that appellees deed the property to appellant — in effect, to negate entirely the order for specific performance.

No claim was made (and no evidence was offered) that the decree had been entered by fraud, mistake, or irregularity. Indeed, such a claim would likely have been foreclosed by our affirmance of the decree. See Buffin v. Hernandez, supra, 44 Md. App. 247 , and the cases cited therein. In response to this petition by appellees, appellant filed his own petition for modification of the decree.

Alleging that his claim to a share of the insurance proceeds was not foreclosed by the decree, but was agreed to by appellees, that, subsequent to the decree appellees had removed about $8,000 worth of electrical fixtures from the property, and that the underlying purchase agreement was really a land installment contract, he asked that the court modify the decree by (1) appointing an auditor to determine the proper apportionment of the insurance proceeds, (2) requiring appellees to return the fixtures or allowing a deduction for their value, (3) amending the clause requiring an adjustment of expenses as of August 30, 1976, so as to require appellees to pay the real estate taxes after that date, and (4) requiring appellees to comply with their obligations "under Title 10 of the Real Property Article” (without specifying what those obligations were or which, if any, had not been satisfied). Upon these cross-petitions (and answers to them) the court conducted a hearing at which certain documentary evidence was admitted by stipulation. That evidence, mostly ³⁸⁰ correspondence between counsel, essentially illustrates the basic disagreement between the parties noted above — appellees’ efforts to conclude settlement in strict accord with the decree and appellant’s insistence on a credit for part of the insurance proceeds and that his wife be joined in a deed as a co-grantee. At the conclusion of the hearing, the court announced that, instead of interpreting and enforcing the decree by making clear what the obligations of the parties were under it (see Maryland Rules 681 and 685), it would grant appellees’ petition for modification, striking from the decree their obligation to convey the property, and would deny appellant’s cross-petition.

The court pointed out that, as the matters complained of by appellant occurred prior to the decree, the court was powerless to modify it on their account; but that it was not so impotent with respect to the post-decretal matters raised in appellees’ petition. An amended decree, effectuating these decisions, was entered on October 15, 1979. A week later, counsel for appellant withdrew his appearance. On October 31, 1979, appellant filed what appears to be a professionally drawn but nonetheless pro se motion to strike the amended decree.

Among a variety of alleged improprieties (lack of due process, failure to state grounds, gross injustice, fraud, conspiracy), appellant claimed: "THE AMENDED DECREE dated October 15, 1979, is void in that this Court lacks the power and authority to enroll such amended decree in that it materially extinguishes or strikes the Decree dated February 22, 1978 in direct contravention to the mandate of the Court of Appeals in Hughes v. Beltway Homes Inc. 276 Md. 382 , 347 A.2d 837 (1975). The language of Rule 625 embraces all of the power the Court has to revise and control the Decree dated February 22, 1978, Meyer v. Gyro Transp. Sys. 263 Md. 518 , 282 A.2d 608 (1971). By reason of each and every paragraph herein, plaintiffs rights under the Decree dated February 22, 1978 is 'res judicata’ and this Court has abused ³⁸¹ and usurped its power and authority with the entry of the AMENDED DECREE dated October 15, 1979.” (Emphasis in the original.) In the next paragraph, in the context of complaining about the court’s failure to state the grounds for its decision (Maryland Rule 18b), appellant stated: "This failure to make a statement of grounds for its decision is an 'act of discretion.’ This Court lacks any discretionary power to strike or materially extinguish the Decree dated February 22, 1978, Travelers Indem.

Co. v. Rosedale Passenger Lines, 450 F.2d 975 (4th Cir. 1971); Ventresca v. Weaver Bros. 266 Md. 398 , 292 A.2d 656 (1972).” These were the only complaints of a jurisdictional nature made by appellant in his motion to strike. 4 On November 5, 1979, the court, finding "no basis upon which [the motion] should be granted,” denied it. The next sequence of events, which accounts for the peculiar posture of the appeal now before us, was as follows: (1) On November 15, 1979, appellant noted an appeal from the (October 15) amended decree; (2) on December 3,1979, he noted an appeal from the court’s denial of his motion to strike the amended decree; (3) on December 31, 1979, pursuant to appellees’ motion and Maryland Rule 1013, the court struck appellant’s November 15 order for appeal as not having been timely filed; and (4) on January 24,1980, appellant noted an appeal from the court’s December 31 order striking his first order for appeal. The record before us in this case thus shows three orders for appeal — the November 15 appeal from the amended decree, which was subsequently stricken by the trial court; the December 3 appeal from the denial of appellant’s motion to strike the amended decree; and the January 24 appeal from the trial court’s order striking the ³⁸² November 15 appeal. Although the last of these appeals — that of January 24 — was timely filed and was properly included in the record transmitted by the clerk of the Circuit Court, 5 and although the court’s Memorandum Opinion and Order striking the November 15 appeal is included in the Joint Record Extract pursuant to Maryland Rule 1028, appellant has not seen fit to include in his brief any mention of or argument concerning that appeal.

We therefore consider that he has abandoned any complaint about that action of the court (see Maryland Rule 1031) and, pursuant to Maryland Rule 1035 a. 2 and b. 7, shall, on our own motion, dismiss that appeal. We hasten to add that the November 15 order for appeal shows on its face that it was not timely filed, and we therefore would have dismissed the appeal under Maryland Rule 1035 a. 2 and b. 3 had the lower court not acted under Maryland Rule 1013. As a result of this action, we are left only with the December 3 appeal from the order denying appellant’s motion to strike the amended decree. This, as we initially noted, is ordinarily a decision that is purely discretionary and has been held to be nonappealable.

Whatever our inclination might be in considering a direct appeal from the amended decree itself, unless we conclude that it is absolutely void, having been entered in a jurisdictional vacuum, it is not our function, or perhaps even our power, to disturb the trial court’s refusal to vacate it. In this regard, we must look carefully at the claims made by appellant. As we have already observed, the jurisdictional deficiency raised in the lower court with respect to the amended decree was based solely upon Maryland Rule 625 a — that in the absence of fraud, mistake, or irregularity, the court had no authority to amend the decree (this being, of course, entirely inconsistent with his own petition to amend the decree). In his brief before us, however, he makes no mention whatever of this ³⁸³ defense.

Instead, he asserts that court’s lack of jurisdiction arose not under Maryland Rule 625 a but rather because the original decree had been affirmed by this court. The issue before us, he says, "is controlled by this Court’s recent decision in Buffin v. Hernandez, 44 Md. App. 247 (1979),” which dealt with the trial court’s authority to revise a judgment, following affirmance on appeal, in a manner inconsistent with the mandate of affirmance by the appellate court. Because both of these grounds are jurisdictionally based, it is incumbent upon us to consider them both. Maryland Rule 1085; 6 Stacy v. Burke, 259 Md. 390, 403 (1970); Webb v. Oxley, 226 Md. 339, 343 (1961); Moore v. State, 15 Md. App. 396 , cert. den. 266 Md. 740 (1972).

These grounds are, of course, somewhat related. Both question not the substance of what the court did (i.e., the contents of the amended decree), but rather its authority to pass an amended decree in the first instance. In this regard,