Grove v. George

⁴³⁰ JAMES R. EYLER, Judge. Appellant, James Grove, appeals from an order by the Circuit Court for Garrett County awarding appellee, Ronald George, $2,040.40 in attorney’s fees and costs. The genesis of the appeal is appellant’s claim for breach of a residential contract of sale (the “Contract”) entered into between the parties. By memorandum opinion and order, dated October 24, 2008, the circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of appellee with respect to the breach of contract claim.

Over a month after the judgment had been entered, on December 1, 2008, appellee filed a motion for attorney’s fees and costs which, among other things, was based on a provision in the Contract entitling the prevailing party in any action on the Contract to recover attorney’s fees. In response, appellant argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to award attorney’s fees and costs after final judgment on the merits. After a hearing, the circuit court awarded attorney’s fees to appellee based on the provision. This appeal followed.

Appellant presents a single contention for our review: Did the [circuit] court err in awarding appellee’s attorney’s fees and costs post-judgment? For the reasons discussed below, we shall affirm. Factual and Procedural Background On December 30, 2005, appellant entered into the Contract to purchase improved real estate owned by appellee. On June 25, 2007, appellant filed a complaint in the District Court of Maryland in Garrett County.

In the complaint, appellant asserted claims for negligent and intentional misrepresentation, stemming from appellee’s alleged failure to disclose an infestation of flying squirrels in the attic of the building on the property and the resulting “biohazard” from the squirrels’ “toilet sites and fecal matter.” Pursuant to appellee’s request for a jury trial, the case was transferred to circuit court. After discovery, appellee filed a motion for summary judgment, in which he requested the circuit court to enter sum ⁴³¹ mary judgment in his favor and to provide “such other and further relief as the nature of his cause may in justice require.” Appellee did not specifically request an award of attorney’s fees and costs. By memorandum opinion and order, dated October 24, 2008, the circuit court granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment, finding that appellant was unable as a matter of law to prove an essential element of his case. The court did not award attorney’s fees or costs.

On December 1, 2008, appellee filed a motion for attorney’s fees and costs, citing, among other things, a provision in the Contract that provides: ATTORNEY’S FEES: In any action or proceeding between Buyer and Seller based, in whole or in part, upon the performance or non-performance of the terms and conditions of this Contract, including, but not limited to, breach of contract, negligence, misrepresentation or fraud, the prevailing party in such action or proceeding shall be entitled to receive reasonable attorney’s fees from the other party as determined by the court or arbitrator. On March 6, 2009, the circuit court entered a memorandum opinion awarding appellee attorney’s fees in the amount of $2,000 and costs in the amount of $40.40, based on the quoted provision. In that opinion, the circuit court noted that appellee’s “claim for reasonable attorney’s fees and costs [ ] did not arise until this Court granted [appellee’s] Motion for Summary Judgment.” This appeal followed. Discussion Appellant contends the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the post-judgment motion for attorneys fees.

More specifically, appellant argues that when a circuit court enters judgment and has neither addressed the issue of attorney’s fees nor reserved the issue for later disposition, the prescribed procedural mechanism to request attorney’s fees is by filing a motion under either Maryland Rule 2-534 1 or 2- ⁴³² 535(a). 2 A 2-534 motion to alter or amend the judgment must be filed, if at all, within ten days after the entry of judgment. A motion to revise the judgment under 2-535(a) must be filed within thirty days after the entry of judgment. Because appellee filed his motion for attorney’s fees just over one month after the circuit court had entered a final judgment in the underlying breach of contract action, and therefore, outside the timeliness standards under those rules, appellant contends the circuit court lacked jurisdiction to “review, amend, supplement, or otherwise affect the ‘final’ order of October 24, 2008” by awarding attorney’s fees and costs to appellee. In making this argument, appellant implicitly assumes the requested attorney’s fees are an integral part of the final judgment, rather than a collateral issue.

We disagree. “Generally, jurisdiction of a trial court with regard to a specific case ends upon enrollment of a final judgment, which occurs thirty days after its entry.” Mullaney v. Aude, 126 Md.App. 639, 650 , 730 A.2d 759 (1999); see Chapman v. ⁴³³ Kamara, 356 Md. 426, 435 , 739 A.2d 387 (1999) (citing Maryland Rule 2-535). This rule does not, however, preclude a trial court from entertaining a collateral or independent matter. Mullaney, 126 Md.App. at 650 , 730 A.2d 759 (citing Dent v. Simmons, 61 Md.App. 122, 129 , 485 A.2d 270 (1985)). “Only those ... orders which affect the ‘ “meat,” or subject matter of [the case]’ have been prohibited.” Mullaney, 126 Md.App. at 650 , 730 A.2d 759 (quoting Dent, 61 Md.App. at 130 , 485 A.2d 270 ). Because Rules 2-534 and Rule 2-535(a) and their respective timeliness standards are derived from Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 52(b) and 59(e), Carr v. Lee, 135 Md.App. 213, 227 , 762 A.2d 142 (2000), we frequently look to the federal courts’ treatment of cases under federal rules.

The Supreme Court, in White v. New Hampshire Dep’t of Employment Sec., 455 U.S. 445 , 102 S.Ct. 1162 , 71 L.Ed.2d 325 (1982), considered whether a motion for attorney’s fees, filed four and a half months after the entry of final judgment on the merits, should be categorized as a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend a judgment and, therefore, subject to the Rule’s ten-day timeliness standard. The Court held that it should not, and consequently, the motion was not untimely. It reasoned: Rule 59(e) was added to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1946. Its draftsmen had a clear and narrow aim.

According to the accompanying Advisory Committee Report, the rule was adopted to “make[ ] clear that the district court possesses the power” to rectify its own mistakes in the period immediately following the entry of judgment. The question of the court’s authority to do so had arisen in Boaz v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 146 F.2d 321, 322 (C.A.8 1944). According to their Report, the draftsmen intended Rule 59(e) specifically “to care for a situation such as that arising in Boaz.” Consistently with this original understanding, the federal courts generally have invoked Rule 59(e) only to support reconsideration of matters properly encompassed in a decision on the merits.

E.g., Browder v. Director, 434 U.S. 257 , 98 S.Ct. 556 , 54 L.Ed.2d 521 (1978). By contrast, a request ⁴³⁴ for attorney’s fees under § 1988 raises legal issues collateral to the main cause of action — issues to which Rule 59(e) was never intended to apply. Section 1988 provides for awards of attorney’s fees only to a “prevailing party.” Regardless of when attorney’s fees are requested, the court’s decision of entitlement to fees will therefore require an inquiry separate from the decision on the merits — an inquiry that cannot even commence until one party has “prevailed.” Nor can attorney’s fees fairly be characterized as an element of “relief’ indistinguishable from other elements. Unlike other judicial relief, the attorney’s fees allowed under § 1988 are not compensation for the injury giving rise to an action.

Their award is uniquely separable from the cause of action to be proved at trial. Id. at 450-52, 102 S.Ct. 1162 (footnotes omitted). See also Sprague v. Ticonic Nat’l Bank, 307 U.S. 161,170 , 59 S.Ct. 777 , 83 L.Ed. 1184 (1939) (observing that a petition for attorney’s fees in equity is “an independent proceeding supplemental to the original proceeding and not a request for a modification of the original decree”). In