Meyers v. Meagher

Singley, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. From judgments of $6,000.00 ($1,000.00 compensatory damages, $5,000.00 punitive damages) entered against Alfred Meyers in favor of John Joseph Meagher, Jr. (John) and of $1,000.00 compensatory damages entered against Meyers in favor of Mrs. Betty Jene Meagher (John’s mother) on jury verdicts in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, Meyers appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. We granted certiorari before the case was heard in that court. In January, 1972, when the events which gave rise to this litigation took place, Meyers owned jointly, with two of his brothers, Franklin and William, a tract of improved real estate, which was vacant, located at 8220 Eastern Boulevard in Baltimore County.

Meyers was employed as a clerk at North Point Liquors, a retail liquor store owned by three of his brothers, Oscar, Henry and William, located several miles from the Eastern Boulevard property, and lived over the liquor store. Franklin Meyers was the owner of a 1953 gray Chevrolet pickup truck which was generally parked at the liquor store. Called as an adverse witness by the plaintiffs, Alfred Meyers ¹³⁰ admitted that in January, 1972, he was the only one of the brothers who drove the truck, which he would drive occasionally to the Eastern Boulevard property, usually during his lunch hour, from 12:30 until 2:00 o’clock. Between 5:00 and 5:30 o’clock on the afternoon of 3 January 1972, John Meagher and two high school classmates, Jeffrey Brown and Daniel Testa, alighted from a bus on Eastern Boulevard near the Back River Bridge, walked to the bank of the river, and along the bank under the bridge to an area north of Eastern Boulevard, looking for a dump where Jeffrey Brown had found an abandoned radio some days previously.

By this time, all three were on the Meyers’ property, and John, who was between the Meyers’ house and garage, was examining a junked vehicle. At this moment, there was a shotgun blast, and John was hit in the back. As he fled in a southwesterly direction, he was struck by a second blast. He then ran west, along Eastern Boulevard.

Jeffrey Brown, who had fled to the east, after being hit by the first blast, flagged a passing car, which picked up John and took both boys to a drive-in restaurant several miles away, from which both boys got a ride home. As it turned out, all three boys had been hit, but it was John who had been peppered with shotgun pellets. Brown was taken to the hospital in an ambulance; Testa, by a police officer, and Meagher, by his mother. Officer Walters of the Baltimore County Police, who had been summoned to the Brown home, made an examination of the Eastern Boulevard premises.

He found fresh pellet marks in the shingles of the garage. Later investigation by members of the police force developed the fact that Alfred Meyers owned a shotgun, which he kept at the liquor store. The officer who examined the gun testified that from his “knowledge of guns and shotguns from hunting it appeared it had been shot recently.” Kevin Bruce Love, who had stopped to buy gasoline between 5:30 and 6:00 o’clock on the afternoon of 3 January ¹³¹ 1972 at the Payless gasoline station, across Eastern Boulevard from the Meyers’ property, testified that he had seen three boys alight from a bus and walk toward the rear of the gasoline station; had heard, about 15 or 20 minutes later, what seemed to be a backfire from a truck, and then saw a gray Chevrolet pickup truck driven out of the driveway of 8220 Eastern Boulevard by a man whom he could not positively identify. Love had no difficulty identifying photographs of Franklin Meyers’ truck as the truck which he had seen entering and later leaving the driveway of the Eastern Boulevard property, and sometime afterward, parked at the liquor store.

At the conclusion of the plaintiffs’ case, Meyers’ motion for a directed verdict was denied. He then offered no evidence, and renewed his motion for a directed verdict, which was again denied. The trial