Fallon v. Agency Rent-A-Car System

Levine, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from a decision of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, the effect of which was to deny a jury ⁵⁸⁷ trial to appellant in a case she had filed in the district court. On February 2, 1972, Agency Rent-A-Car System (Rent-A-Car) filed suit against appellant in the District Court of Maryland for District 8 (Baltimore County), claiming $860.78 for rental of an automobile. Appellant was served on February 5, and on February 10 her attorney filed what appears to have been intended as the “Notice of Intention to Defend” that is contemplated by M.D.R. 302 a.

No jury request was filed in that case. On March 2, 1972, appellant filed a new case against Aetna Life & Casualty Co. (Aetna), in which she sought the type of relief that is normally obtained by a third-party action under Rule 315, i.e., indemnification and contribution. Oddly enough, appellant labeled her new suit as a “third-party claim,” and throughout these proceedings has incorrectly identified herself as a third-party plaintiff and Aetna as a third-party defendant. This was merely the first curious step taken by appellant.

That suit was accompanied by a twofold request for jury trial and consolidation of both cases. With extraordinary consistency, appellant then proceeded to have the sheriff serve the Aetna claim and summons on the attorney for Rent-A-Car. Whether Aetna has even heard of this case is not disclosed by the record. Suffice it to say, it has never appeared at any stage of the proceedings.

In any event, with the cases in that posture, they were consolidated and transferred to the circuit court. There, Rent-A-Car filed a motion ne recvpiatur in the first case, in which it asked that the request for jury trial and motion to consolidate not be received. In ruling, however, Judge Menchine signed orders granting the motion in each case and remanded both to the district court. It appears that he did so—not illogically under the circumstances—because the actions had been consolidated ; and the case against Aetna was, as appellant had insisted throughout, a third-party claim. ⁵⁸⁸ While appellant has actually appealed from both orders, she has tacitly abandoned that which was taken from the order remanding the first case to the district court, by confining her brief to the order entered in the suit brought against Aetna.

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