Estate of Burris v. State

WILNER, Judge. In the early morning hours of June 13, 1997, Major Andrew Burris died after being run over by a 2/é ton truck operated by Gregory Headly and his assistant driver, Submas Singh, both members of the Maryland Army National Guard (MANG). The accident occürred at Camp Blanding, Florida, where units of MANG were participating in 15 days of annual summer training. The issue before us is whether the State of Maryland is liable to the Estate and family of Major Burris, which ⁷²⁵ sued the State for negligence.

The Circuit Court for Montgomery County, in granting the State’s motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, determined that there was no liability. We agree and shall affirm the Circuit Court’s judgment. BACKGROUND The training session that led to the accident required the MANG soldiers to attack a unit of the Florida Army National Guard. Members of the 82nd Airborne Division, an active duty unit of the U.S. Army of which Major Burris was a member, participated as evaluators in several of the training exercises being conducted at Camp Blanding.

The accident occurred as Headly and Singh, just after midnight, were driving the truck along a dirt road en route to pick up a patrol. Major Burris had been in the roadway evaluating another exercise. Even after the soldiers involved in the other exercise moved off the road, Major Burris remained seated in the roadway. There was some evidence that he may have fallen asleep, as he made no apparent effort to move as the truck approached from his rear.

The exact speed of the truck at the moment of impact was never determined, but evidence was presented that, at some point prior to the accident, the truck was observed going between 25 and 30 miles per hour and that Camp Blanding imposed a speed limit of five miles per hour. Although the truck was proceeding in “blackout conditions,” which meant that no headlights were allowed to be on, neither Headly nor Singh were wearing night vision goggles. Headly did not even have such goggles; Singh had a pair but was not wearing them. Neither soldier had received any training in the use of night vision goggles.

Neither Headly nor Singh saw Major Burris in the roadway prior to the accident. The injuries suffered by Major Burris as a result of the collision were serious. The truck ran over his midsection, crushing his pelvis and lacerating his liver, which, in turn, led to internal bleeding. Exacerbating the problem were a dread- ⁷²⁶ fill series of missteps after the accident that significantly delayed his evacuation to receive treatment.

The medics, who did not arrive until 15 minutes after the accident, came in an ambulance that was not equipped with a cervical collar or litter straps, which were necessary to secure the patient who, perhaps as a result of his injuries, was physically resisting the medics; a second ambulance, also inadequately stocked, arrived five minutes later and, using supplies from both ambulances, the medics were able to secure Major Burris and transport him to the Troop Medical Clinic, some 45 minutes after he was struck. The clinic was unable to deal with his injuries, however, and, after a further series of mishaps, during which he was transported to the wrong hospital, he was eventually taken by helicopter to a proper hospital, about two hours after the collision, where he was declared dead on arrival. The U.S. Army and MANG had somewhat different views regarding culpability for the incident. Responding to the investigation conducted by the 82nd Airborne Division, the Maryland Adjutant General determined that (1) Major Burris’s death resulted most directly from “his lack of situational awareness during night vehicle maneuvers,” and (2) declining resources diminished the ability of MANG to provide and train troops with respect to night vision goggles.

As to the first point, the Adjutant General noted that there was no credible evidence that the MANG truck was proceeding at an excessive rate of speed at the time of the accident and that, if Major Burris had been alert, he would have heard the truck in sufficient time to remove himself from the road. As to the second, the Adjutant General stated that the MANG soldiers did not train with night vision goggles because they did not have them, and, although some were available from the Florida Army National Guard for purposes of the exercise, the MANG drivers did not use them because they had not been trained in their use. The Army took issue, at least in part, with those conclusions. It rejected both “resourcing” and lack of training as reasons for the drivers not having and using night vision goggles and, although conceding that Major Bur ⁷²⁷ ris “may have been inattentive,” it concluded that the drivers were also inattentive and were likely speeding.

In January, 1999, the Estate and widow of Major Burris filed suit against the State, the Military Department of the State, the Maryland National Guard, and the Maryland Army National Guard. Their complaint alleged negligence (1) on the part of the drivers of the truck in speeding, being sleep-deprived, and failing to use night vision goggles, and (2) on the part of the State and the Maryland National Guard in lacking sufficient supplies of night vision goggles to provide them to all members during blackout conditions, failing to provide training to the drivers in the use of night vision goggles, and failing to have in place an adequate medical evacuation plan for its exercises. The State responded with a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, in which it raised three defenses: (1) sovereign immunity, which, because the drivers were not “State personnel,” was not waived by the Maryland Tort Claims Act (MTCA); (2) the complaint sought to predicate liability on “nonjusticiable military issues”; and (3) suit was barred by the doctrine of intra-military immunity. The court credited all three defenses and, for those reasons, granted the motion and dismissed the complaint. 1 Upon the plaintiffs’ appeal, we granted certiorari on our own initiative, prior to proceedings in the Court of Special Appeals, to review the court’s conclusions.

DISCUSSION The National Guard The men and women who serve as soldiers in the Maryland Army (or Air) National Guard are members of three distinct ⁷²⁸ organizations — the Maryland Army (or Air) National Guard (MANG), the National Guard, and the Army (or Air) National Guard of the United States. 2 Each of these entities emanates from the colonial and early Statehood Militias — the unorganized body of citizen-soldiers that, for the first part of our national history, constituted a major, though largely illusory and often unreliable, part of the nation’s and the States’ military defense force. The Maryland militia dates back to the earliest days of our history. Its existence reflected, from the beginning, the fear of large standing armies and the desire to rely, as much as possible, on the general able-bodied citizenry for defense. In 1654, the Provincial Assembly directed that there be a captain and officers in every county “to take view of Armes in Every family and that all persons from 16 yeares of age to Sixty shall be provided with Serviceable Armes & Sufficient Amunition of Powder and Shott ready upon all Occasions and that Every master of families provid Armnes & amunition as aforesaid for Every such Servant, And that the sd.

Capt. so Chosen or appointed shall have power by [Commission] Granted him for the Exerciseing of such persons as Aforesd. and Imploying them for the Service of the Commonwealth.” Assembly Proceedings, Oct. 1654, 1 Archives of Maryland 347 (Md. Historical Society 1883). On the eve of the Revolution 120 years later, the third Provincial Convention, meeting in December, 1774, resolved that all men in the Province between the ages of 16 and 50 be enrolled in militia companies. That direction was based on the asserted premise that “a well regulated militia ... is the ⁷²⁹ natural strength and only stable security of a free government,” that such a militia “will relieve our mother country from any expense in our protection and defence,” and that it would “obviate the pretence of a necessity for taxing us on that account, and render it unnecessary to keep any standing army (ever dangerous to liberty,) in this province.” Proceedings of the Convention, Dec. 1774, 78 Archives of Maryland 8. The vain effort, of course, was to convince Parliament that the people of the province could defend themselves and that it was unnecessary for them to be burdened by English (or English-purchased) troops and by the taxes levied to pay for those troops.

When Maryland declared independence from Great Britain and adopted its first Constitution, it embodied some of those sentiments in its first (1776) Constitutional Declaration of Rights, where they remain to this day. Articles 25 and 26 (current Articles 28 and 29) provided that “a well regulated militia is the proper and natural defence of a free government” and that “standing armies are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be raised or kept up without consent of the legislature.” In Article 33 of the Constitution itself, the Governor, with the advice of his Council, was authorized to “embody the militia” and “have the direction thereof.” The militia established in 1774 served as a home guard during the Revolutionary War. It was not part of the Continental Army, which was recruited separately, and it did not leave the State. That may have been a blessing.

Although it appears that George Washington favored a “well-regulated militia,” envisioning a body consisting of the younger members of the community who would be properly officered and trained, he had little use for the rag-tag militias that were available to him during the Revolutionary War. See Frederick Bernays Wiener, The Militia Clause of the Constitution, 54 Harv. L.Rev. 181, 183 (1940). The role of the militia in national affairs was a matter of some debate at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the States were forbidden to ⁷³⁰ keep any “body of forces” in time of peace except as authorized by the United States Congress, but they were required to “keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred.” U.S. Art. of Confed., art. 6. At the Convention, the recognized need for a reliable defense force collided with the ingrained concern that the creation and maintenance of a national standing army might imperil both individual liberty and the sovereignty of the States. As was the case with most issues debated in Philadelphia in the summer and early fall of 1787, this one led to a compromise— provision for both a standing national army and continuation of the various State militias. In Article I, § 8, clauses 12, 13, and 14, of the United States Constitution, Congress was given the power to raise and support armies (limited by the condition that no appropriation for that purpose shall be for a longer term than two years), to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

In clauses 15 and 16, it was authorized to provide for “calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions,” and to provide for “organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.” Any standing army was to be a national one, or at least one under Congressional control. In Article I, § 10, clause 3, the States were forbidden, without the consent of Congress, to “keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace.” As the Supreme Court noted in Perpich v. Department of Defense, 496 U.S. 334, 340-41 , 110 S.Ct. 2418, 2423 , 110 L.Ed.2d 312, 322 (1990), although Congress was authorized both to raise a national army and organize the militia, in the early years of the Republic, it did neither. In 1792, Congress enacted a statute that purported to establish a “Uniform Militia throughout the United States,” by directing that every able-bodied male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 equip ⁷³¹ himself, at his own expense, with appropriate arms and appear when called to exercise or into service 3 (see 1 Stat. 271 (1792)), but, as the Perpich Court observed, that law “was virtually ignored for more than a century, during which time the militia proved to be a decidedly unreliable fighting force.” Perpich, 496 U.S. at 341 , 110 S.Ct. at 2423 , 110 L.Ed.2d at 322 . Wiener suggests that the law was ineffective because it was unselective: “It imposed a duty on everyone, with the result that this duty was discharged by no one.” Wiener, supra, 54 Harv.

L.Rev., at 187. Perhaps a more significant deficiency was the fact that, under the Constitution, the militias could be called into national service only to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions, and, accordingly, they were not available for foreign adventures. The militias were used to suppress the Whiskey Insurrection, but they could not be called into service for the 1848 Mexican War, leading Congress, under its power to raise and support armies, to authorize the organization of volunteers to serve in that war. The militias continued to exist in the States (see 1793 Md. Laws, ch. 53 and 1834 Md. Laws, ch. 251, providing for the organization of the militia, consisting of all able-bodied male (later, for a time, white male) citizens between the ages of 18 and 45), but they never really served any effective role in national military affairs.

Some militia units fought at the first battle of Bull Run, but, as their enlistments, under a 1795 ⁷³² Federal law, expired after three months, President Lincoln was dependent, for the balance of the Civil War, principally on national volunteers (see 12 Stat. 268 ) and, later, draftees. The militias were left behind as home guards or for sudden emergencies. After the Civil War, according to Wiener, the militia contemplated by the 1792 Act — the composite able-bodied male citizenry — “virtually ceased to exist, and the States relied more and more upon select bodies of men, trained after a fashion and without uniform supervision, who became known as National Guards.” Wiener, supra, 54 Harv. L.Rev., at 191.

The creation of a Maryland National Guard came about in 1886. In 1870, the Legislature, though continuing in effect the “Militia of this State,” consisting of all able-bodied white male citizens between the ages of 18 and 45, provided for the organization of volunteer companies drawn from the militia, and it was those volunteer companies that were to be organized, officered, and armed. See 1870 Md. Laws, ch. 182. The 1886 law provided that “out of the volunteer uniformed organizations already existing and those hereby created, there shall be formed a body of active militia ... to be known as the ‘Maryland National Guard.’ ” 1886 Md. Laws, ch. 162.

The men serving in that force were to be sworn and “regularly enlisted,” and when so enlisted, for a period of three years, “shall be considered in the active militia service of the State,” liable “to be called into actual service at any time for the repression of disorder and for the protection of property in aid of the civil authorities and the police of the State.” Id. Both officers and enlisted men were to take an oath to bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland and support the Constitution thereof. The Governor, as commander-in-chief, was directed to order an encampment of the units once every two years and to require the units to adopt a service uniform resembling, as nearly as possible, that of United States troops. It was that “organized militia,” or National Guard, created throughout the country in the decades following the Civil War that Congress came to regard as the Uniform Militia contem ⁷³³ plated by the 1792 enactment.

Although that force may have sufficed for State purposes, it increasingly was regarded as inadequate as a national military force. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt, stung no doubt by the refusal of even some of the organized militias to serve in the Spanish-American War (which presented the same problem as the Mexican War did 50 years earlier — the President was not empowered to call the militia to service in Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines), declared the 1792 militia law “obsolete and worthless.” Perpich, 496 U.S. at 341 n. 10, 110 S.Ct. at 2423 n. 10, 110 L.Ed.2d at 323 n. 10. In his First Annual Message to Congress, he urged that “[t]he organization and armament of the National Guard of the several States, which are treated as militia in the appropriations by the Congress, should be made identical with those provided for the regular forces” and that “[t]he obligations and duties of the Guard in time of war should be carefully defined, and a system established by law under which the method of procedure of raising volunteer forces should be prescribed in advance.” Id. (quoting 14 Messages and Papers of the Presidents 6672).

The National Guard, as a national entity, came into being in 1903 under the Dick Act, 32 Stat. 775 , named for Congressman Charles Dick, who had fought with the Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Cuba and was chairman of the House Committee on Militia. The Act was succinctly described in Perpich, 496 U.S. at 342 , 110 S.Ct. at 2423 , 110 L.Ed.2d at 323 : “The Dick Act divided the class of able-bodied male citizens between 18 and 45 years of age into an ‘organized militia’ to be known as the National Guard of the several States, and the remainder of which was then described as the ‘reserve militia,’ and which later statutes have termed the ‘unorganized militia.’ The statute created a table of organization for the National Guard conforming to that of the Regular Army, and provided that federal funds and Regular Army instructors should be used to train its members.” With respect to training, the Dick Act provided for field encampments, armory drills, assignment of Regular Army ⁷³⁴ officers to duty with the National Guard, and attendance of National Guard officers at Regular Army Service Schools. Although the Dick Act was regarded as a vast improvement, it did not resolve the Constitutional impediment against ordering National Guard units to service outside the United States. See 29 Op.

Atty. Gen. 322, 322-27 (1912), in which U.S. Attorney General Wickersham opined that the Militia Clauses of the U.S. Constitution precluded the President from using National Guard units south of the Mexican border. Congress responded, in 1916, with the National Defense Act which, among other things, reorganized the Regular Army, provided Federal funding for National Guard encampments, armory drills, and administration, and formally made the National Guard part of the U.S. Army. As described by the Perpich Court: “In response to [Wickersham’s] opinion and to the widening conflict in Europe, in 1916 Congress decided to ‘federalize’ the National Guard.

In addition to providing for greater federal control and federal funding of the Guard, the statute required every guardsman to take a dual oath — to support the Nation as well as the States and to obey the President as well as the Governor — and authorized the President to draft members of the Guard into federal service. The statute expressly provided that the Army of the United States should include not only ‘the Regular Army,’ but also ‘the National Guard while in the service of the United States,’ and that, when drafted into federal service by the President, members of the Guard so drafted should ‘from the date of their draft, stand discharged from the militia, and shall from said date be subject to’ the rules and regulations governing the Regular Army.” Perpich, 496 U.S. at 343-44 , 110 S.Ct. at 2424 , 110 L.Ed.2d at 323-24 (footnotes and citation omitted). During World War I, President Wilson exercised his authority under the 1916 Act and drafted members of the National Guard into the Regular Army. The Supreme Court upheld that authority in the Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 , ⁷³⁵ 38 S.Ct. 159 , 62 L.Ed. 349 (1918).

As the Perpich Court observed, however, “[t]he draft of the individual members of the National Guard into the Army during World War I virtually destroyed the Guard as an effective organization. The draft terminated the members’ status as militiamen, and the statute did not provide for a restoration of their prewar status as members of the Guard when they were mustered out of the Army.” Perpich, 496 U.S. at 345 , 110 S.Ct. at 2425 , 110 L.Ed.2d at 325 . That problem was remedied by a 1933 enactment ( 48 Stat. 153 ), which brought us, essentially, to where we are today. The Act constituted the National Guard as a reserve component of the United States Army, to be known as the National Guard of the United States, and thereby preserved the integrity of its units.

As described by Wiener: “In place of the former draft into federal service, as individuals, the Guard would be ordered into federal service as units. Such an order could not be given unless Congress declared a national emergency and authorized the use of troops in excess of those of the Regular Army. The organization of the units existing at the date of the order was to be maintained intact, insofar as practicable. Upon being relieved from federal service, all individuals and units would revert to their National Guard status.” Wiener, supra, 54 Harv.

L.Rev., at 208. Accordingly, as the Perpich Court noted, since 1933, “all persons who have enlisted in a State National Guard unit have simultaneously enlisted in the National Guard of the United States.” Perpich, 496 U.S. at 345 , 110 S.Ct. at 2425 , 110 L.Ed.2d at 325 . Unless and until ordered to active duty in the Army, they retain their status as members of the State National Guard. By virtue of their dual enlistment, however, when called to active duty in the military service of the United States, they are relieved of their status in the State Guard for the duration of their Federal service.

See also Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1 , 93 S.Ct. 2440 , 37 L.Ed.2d 407 (1973). ⁷³⁶ Although there is a dual enlistment, there is, as we indicated, a triple status. Enlistment in a State Army or Air National Guard constitutes, as well, enlistment in the Army or Air National Guard of the United States. The National Guard, in contrast with the Army (or Air) National Guard of the United States, is a broader concept; it is, simply, the organized militia. This is manifest in title 10 U.S.C. § 311 , which deals with the militia referred to in the U.S. Constitution.

Section 311(a) defines, with certain exceptions, the “militia of the United States” as consisting of all able-bodied male citizens between the ages of 17 and 45 and all female citizens who are members of the National Guard. Section 311(b) divides that militia into two classes: the “organized militia,” which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia, and the “unorganized militia,” which consists of those members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. State law makes a comparable classification. See Maryland Code, Article 65, § 5.

The issues in this case, at least with respect to the truck drivers, Headly and Singh, involve the relationship between MANG and the Army National Guard of the United States. Liability For Conduct Of Headly And Singh The defendants in this case are the State of Maryland and units of the State Government, which we shall refer to collectively as the State. Headly and Singh were not sued individually. The action is for common law negligence, and, to the extent it is based on the conduct of Headly and Singh, the liability sought to be imposed on the State is a vicarious one— the liability of the principal for the negligent acts of its agents.

The State has a common law sovereign immunity from such actions, however, except to the extent that the Legislature has waived that immunity by (1) authorizing a suit for damages, and (2) providing for the payment of any resulting judgment. Kee v. State Highway Admin., 313 Md. 445, 455 , 545 A.2d 1312, 1317 (1988). The only relevant statute in this case is the Maryland Tort Claims Act (MTCA), found in Maryland Code, §§ 12-101 through 12-110 of the State Government Article ⁷³⁷ and § 5-522 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article. That Act “established a limited waiver of the State’s immunity in certain tort actions.” Condon v. State, 332 Md. 481, 492 , 632 A.2d 753, 758 (1993).

Whether the State is liable for the conduct of Headly and Singh depends on whether MTCA applies. In examining MTCA, we must start with the more basic premise that, quite apart from any doctrine of sovereign immunity, vicarious liability does not exist unless the negligent conduct was committed by an employee or agent of the State. Sovereign immunity becomes important, with respect to vicarious liability, only when, under traditional agency law, the negligent actor is an agent of the State. It is then that we must look to MTCA to determine whether the State has waived its immunity as to that conduct or that actor.

MTCA does not purport to waive immunity, and thus assume liability, to the full extent of the law of agency, however. Immunity from vicarious liability is waived only to the extent that the tortious conduct is committed by “State personnel” — a defined term. See State v. Card, 104 Md.App. 439, 447 , 656 A.2d 400, 404 , cert. denied, 339 Md. 643 , 664 A.2d 886 (1995) (“There is nothing in [MTCA] itself, or in its history, suggesting an intent that the State be liable for the conduct of persons other than those included within the definition of ‘State personnel.’ ”). Accordingly, the State’s liability for the conduct of Headly and Singh depends not on whether they were agents of the State in any general sense but whether, at the time of the accident, they were “State personnel.” The term “State personnel” is defined in § 12-101 (a).

It includes a laundry list of officials and employees, but only two categories are relevant here — subsection (a)(1), which includes “a State employee or official who is paid in whole or in part by the Central Payroll Bureau in the Office of the Comptroller of the Treasury,” and subsection (a)(4), which includes “an individual who, without compensation, exercises a part of the sovereignty of the State.” ⁷³⁸ Petitioners make a number of claims, some addressing § 12-101(a), some not. Principally, they ignore the limitation put on the waiver of immunity and treat the issue as depending on whether MANG had been “federalized” or, conversely, remained in State service during the training exercise. Relying on United States v. Hawaii, 832 F.2d 1116 (9th Cir.1987) and Emsley v. Army Nat’l Guard, 106 Wash.2d 474 , 722 P.2d 1299 (1986), they contend that members of a State National Guard remain State employees during training sessions and that “[t]he record here is devoid of facts as to whether [MANG] was properly federalized during its training at Camp Blanding.” The very statement of the argument exposes its fallacy. We are not concerned with whether the two actors were State employees during the training exercise, but with whether, during that exercise, they were “State personnel,” and therein lies the distinction between this case and the two cited.

In the Hawaii case, the plaintiffs were injured when their car was struck by a jeep driven by a sergeant in the Hawaii National Guard who, at the time, was apparently in a training exercise. The plaintiffs sued the United States and Hawaii under their respective tort claims acts. When they dismissed their action against Hawaii, the United States filed a third party claim against the State for contribution. The Government settled with the plaintiffs and then pursued its third party complaint.

The driver, the court held, was a Federal employee at the time of the accident and was therefore individually immune from suit under the Federal Drivers’ Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2679 (b). Neither that fact nor the fact that the Federal Tort Claims Act made the Federal Government liable for acts or omissions of National Guard personnel during Federal training activities, the court held, precluded derivative liability on the part of Hawaii, because, as a National Guardsman, the driver was also, according to the court, under the control of the State. The case presented a host of issues not at all germane here but, for our purposes, it essentially turned on the fact that, under the Hawaii tort claims act in effect at the time of the accident, Hawaii had apparently waived sovereign immunity ⁷³⁹ for negligent acts of National Guard personnel occurring during Federal training exercises. 4 That is not the case with MTCA. Nor, we might add, is it any longer the case in Hawaii.

The Washington case is distinguishable for the same reasons. The plaintiffs were Army personnel who were killed or injured when, during a training exercise, an artillery unit of the Washington National Guard negligently fired a shell in their direction. The Washington tort claims act made the State liable for damages arising out of its tortious conduct “to the same extent as if it were a private person or corporation.” Emsley, 722 P.2d at 1302 . Unlike MTCA, it apparently did not attempt to define or limit the types of agents whose conduct would produce vicarious liability.

See also Kentucky National Guard v. Bayles, 535 S.W.2d 234 (Ky.1976) and Speer v. State, 27 Ill. Ct. Cl. 188 , 1971 WL 14977 (1971). There are both Federal and State laws dealing with MANG. The Federal laws are scattered among Title 32 of the U.S.Code, dealing with the National Guard, Title 10, dealing with the Armed Forces, and Title 37, dealing with pay and allowances for the uniformed services.

The State law is contained principally in Article 65 of the Maryland Code, dealing with the militia. Title 32 U.S.C. § 502 requires that, under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Army (or Air Force), each company, battery, squadron, and detachment of the National Guard (1) assemble for drill and instruction at least 48 times each year, and (2) participate in training at ⁷⁴⁰ encampments, maneuvers, outdoor target practice, or other exercises, at least 15 days each year. Those requirements are also imposed by State law. See Article 65, § 27.

Under Federal law, the 48 weekend drills are classified as inactive duty