Hess v. Chalmers

⁵⁴² Melvin, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The primary question for decision in this appeal is whether the Circuit Court for Baltimore County (Raine, J.) correctly applied the doctrine of res judicata in granting the appellees’ (respondents’ below) motion for summary judgment. A second question to be decided is the correctness of Judge Raine’s ruling denying appellees’ motion for counsel fees, that question being the subject matter of appellees’ cross-appeal. In 1963 Helen Lee Dietrich and her husband, George, conveyed a number of parcels of land located in Baltimore County, Baltimore City, and Anne Arundel County to a corporate straw party.

The parcels were immediately reconveyed to Helen Dietrich for life with full powers of disposition, except by will, with remainder to her two daughters (the appellants here) and her husband, George. In 1968, in settlement of a marital dispute, George released all his rights in the property. Helen then exercised her powers of disposition by a blanket deed conveying all the parcels to a straw party. The property was immediately reconveyed to Helen, vesting in her absolute ownership of all the property covered by the 1963 conveyances.

In 1971, Helen died. By her will, dated December 12, 1968, she devised the land here in question to the appellants and three others in equal shares. In 1974, appellants filed a bill of complaint in Anne Arundel County seeking to have themselves declared vested with title as remaindermen to the property located in Anne Arundel County. After a hearing, Judge James L. Wray filed a memorandum opinion and decree on 20 May 1974.

The opinion in effect declared that the 1968 straw conveyances vesting absolute title in Helen validly divested the appellants of any interest they held as remaindermen by virtue of the 1963 conveyances. The appellants appealed to this Court on August 19, 1974. As to Judge Wray’s decree of 20 May 1974, the appeal was dismissed as being filed too late. Hess v. Chalmers, 27 Md. App. 284 (1975).

While the appeal was pending, appellants on 7 November 1974 filed their bill of complaint in the instant proceedings ⁵⁴³ in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County against the same parties (appellees here) who were respondents in the Anne Arundel County case. With the exception that the bill concerned only the Baltimore County property covered by the 1963 conveyances, it was in other respects virtually identical to the bill of complaint previously filed in Anne Arundel County. In each bill the relief sought was that the appellants “be declared to be the lawful remaindermen” of the property covered by the 1963 conveyances in the respective counties. Each bill raised the single legal issue of the validity of the 1968 conveyances which divested them as remaindermen and placed absolute ownership in their mother, Helen.

The appellees answered the Baltimore County bill of complaint and moved for summary judgment alleging that the Anne Arundel County decree was res judicata as to all issues then before the court. After a hearing held on 18 November 1975, the motion was granted. In his oral opinion, Judge Raine said: “. . . [T]here doesn’t seem to me to be any dispute as to any relevant facts, so that I would believe that the Respondents here would be entitled to a summary decree on the facts themselves, but in addition I believe that the doctrine of res judicata constitutes an absolute bar when Judge Wray and the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County dismissed the Bill of Complaint and his decision remained undisturbed. It was between the same parties, it presented the same issues, it involved the identical deeds, and the mere fact that he was taking jurisdiction there because of some of these properties being located in Anne Arundel County and this Court gets into it because of properties being located in Baltimore County, the law is the same and the facts are the same, so I am going to grant the motion for summary decree and dismiss the Bill of Complaint.” ⁵⁴⁴ We hold that Judge Raine was right for the right reasons.

Lebrun v. Marcey, 199 Md. 223 (1952), Davis v. Frederick County Board, 25 Md. App. 68 (1975). See also U.S. v. Memphis Cotton Oil Corporation, 288 U. S. 62 (1933). At the conclusion of the hearing on the motion for summary judgment and after the chancellor had announced his decision to grant the summary judgment, cross-appellants orally moved for an award of counsel fees “under Rule 604b”. No mention of the subject had been previously made.

We quote in its