Piven v. Comcast Corp.

WILNER, J. The issue before us is whether, in an action for trespass to land located solely in one county, it is permissible to join an action for trespass to land located solely in a different county when the two parcels of land are not contiguous and have no common ownership. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County said “no,” the Court of Special Appeals said “no,” and we shall say “no.” BACKGROUND In May, 2004, Sylvia Piven, a resident of, and owner of real property located solely in, Baltimore County, and Stanley and Donna Chaplinski, residents of, and owners of property locat ²⁸⁰ ed solely in, Baltimore City, filed an action in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County against fifteen named Comcast companies and 99 unnamed “John Doe Comcast Corporation[s]” one or more of which were alleged to have unlawfully placed or directed the placement of one or more cables or wires across the plaintiffs’ land without the plaintiffs’ permission. 1 The action purported to be a class action on behalf of not only Piven and the Chaplinskis but “all persons who own property (or otherwise control the relevant possessory interest in the property)” upon which any of the defendants, whom the plaintiffs referred to collectively as Comcast, had run wires as alleged. That would include plaintiffs and property throughout the State; the complaint alleges that the class is “composed of thousands, and possible tens of thousands, of members.” The complaint contained three causes of action. Count I was for trespass—that by stringing its wires across the plaintiffs’ properties without permission from the plaintiffs who own those properties, one or more of the various Comcast defendants entered upon the land unlawfully, intruded upon ²⁸¹ the respective plaintiffs’ possessory interest in the land, and caused them to suffer unspecified damages.

As relief, the plaintiffs asked for compensatory damages, an injunction either granting the plaintiffs legal ownership of the wires over their property or requiring Comcast to remove the wires, interest, and attorneys’ fees. Count II, which incorporated all of the previous averments relating to the trespass, sought damages for unjust enrichment, the basis for which was that it would be inequitable for Comcast to retain the benefit conferred on it by its unlawful use of the plaintiffs’ property. Count III, which also incorporated the previous averments, was characterized as an action to quiet title. It, too, was based on the claim that Comcast had “substantially interfered with one or more exclusive possessory property interests” held by the plaintiffs.

Counts II and III sought precisely the same relief as Count I. The complaint alleged that venue lay in Baltimore County under Maryland Code “ § 6-201 et seq.” of the Courts and Jud. Proc. Article (CJP) on the theory that “either this jurisdiction is a venue applicable to all Defendants; or, if there is no single venue applicable to all Defendants, one (or more) of them may be sued in this venue” and that each defendant is engaged in “a vocation in this jurisdiction.” The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on both venue and jurisdictional grounds, and, in the alternative, asked for a more definite statement of facts. As to venue, they asserted that “[cjlaims involving distinct properties located in different jurisdictions and owned by different plaintiffs cannot be combined in one jurisdiction.” The motion for a more definite statement asked that the plaintiffs be required to state what lines the plaintiffs were complaining about, whether they were above or below ground, whether they were connected to utility poles, and whether the lines originated or terminated on the plaintiffs’ properties.

The court conducted a hearing on the motion in January, 2005. At that point, no class had been certified, so the court treated the action as involving only the named plaintiffs—Ms. ²⁸² Piven, whose property was in Baltimore County, and the Chaplinskis, whose property was in Baltimore City. After hearing from counsel and consulting the relevant statutes, the court found merit in both the venue objection and the request for more definite facts. It concluded that the actions sounded in trespass, which was a local action that had to be brought in the county where the land was located, and that it was impermissible to bring, or join, a claim for trespass to property in Baltimore City in an action in Baltimore County.

The court granted the motion to dismiss, but with leave to amend, to provide facts as to the specific properties involved, including whether the Comcast lines are alleged to run over or under the property and what Comcast specifically did to the property. The court made very clear to counsel that the Chaplinskis’ claim could not be filed in Baltimore County and that if the Chaplinskis’ claim was joined in any amended complaint without a certification of a class, the amended complaint would be dismissed. 2 The plaintiffs promptly filed an amended complaint that, in most respects, was virtually identical to the initial one. Although there were some additional allegations regarding the various defendants, the Chaplinskis’ claim, despite the court’s earlier ruling and warning, was once again included. That produced another motion to dismiss which, after a hearing, the court granted, this time without leave to amend.

Noting again the fact that no class had been certified (and musing whether, in light of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 ( Pub.L. No. 109-2, 119 Stat. 4, and, in particular, 28 U.S.C. § 1453 ), the case would remain in State court if the proposed class were to be certified), the court continued to treat the issue as simply whether an action for trespass to real property located in Baltimore City could be filed in Baltimore County, and its answer continued to be “no.” In a reported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed, holding that the issue was governed by CJP § 6—203(b)(1)(iv), which requires that an action ²⁸³ for trespass to land be brought in the county where all or any portion of the land is located, and that an action for trespass to land in Baltimore City simply could not be brought in Baltimore County. Piven v. Comcast, 168 Md.App. 221 , 895 A.2d 1118 (2006). We granted certiorari and shall affirm. DISCUSSION The relevant laws relating to venue—where an action may be brought—are set forth in CJP §§ 6-201 through 6-203. 3 Section 6-201 states the general rules that (1) “[s]ubject to the provisions of §§ 6-202 and 6-203” and “unless otherwise provided by law, a civil action shall be brought in a county where the defendant resides, carries on a regular business, is employed, or habitually engages in a vocation,” (2) a corporation may also be sued where it maintains its principal offices in the State, and (3) if there is more than one defendant and there is no single venue applicable to all defendants, all may be sued in any county in which any of them could be sued or in the county where the cause of action arose.

Section 6-202 provides some alternative venues in thirteen enumerated situations, only three of which are cited by Piven and the Chaplinskis and bear any mention. Section 6-202(3) permits an action against a corporation which has no principal place of business in the State to be filed in the county where the plaintiff resides; § 6-202(7) permits an action for possession of real property to be filed in a county where a portion of the land upon which the action is based is located; and § 6-202(13) provides that in a local action in which the defendant cannot be found in the county where the subject matter of the action is located, suit may be brought in any county in which venue is proper under § 6-201. Section 6-203 sets forth certain exceptions to the general rule stated in § 6-201. Section 6-203(b)(l)(iv) provides, in relevant part, that venue in an action of trespass to land is in ²⁸⁴ the county where all or any portion of “the subject matter of the action” is located.

Section 6-203(b)(2) adds that, if the property lies in more than one county, “the court in which proceedings are first brought has jurisdiction over the entire property.” In an action for trespass to land, the “subject matter of the action” is the trespass—the intrusion upon the land and the interference with the plaintiffs alleged right of possession and use of the land—and that necessarily is where the land itself is situated. Under § 6-203, therefore, an action for trespass to land must be brought in the county where all or any portion of the land is located, and it may not be brought anywhere else. In an effort to escape the clear meaning and intent of § 6-203(b), Piven and the Chaplinskis make essentially two arguments. First, relying largely on Roessner v. Mitchell, 122 Md. 460 , 89 A. 722 (1914), they treat their unconnected properties (and the unconnected properties of all of the other putative class members) not as the separate “subject matter” of a separate trespass to those individual properties but rather as though each of those parcels comprise but a part of a larger, aggregate “subject matter of the action” that relates to the alleged trespasses to all of the properties.

Their point, in this regard, is that the Chaplin skis’ property in Baltimore City is merely a portion of a whole that comprises both the Chaplin-ski and the Piven properties (and the properties of all other putative class members), and that the action could therefore lie in any county in which any of the properties (portions of the whole) are located, either under § 6-203(b) or under §§ 6— 201 or 6-202(3), (7), or (13). The second argument is that, even if the Chaplinskis’ action for trespass under Count I of the amended complaint cannot be brought in Baltimore County, Counts II and III constitute transitory, rather than local, actions and may be brought in any county, including Baltimore County, in which any of the multiple defendants could be sued. Neither argument has any merit. Maryland has long recognized a distinction between local actions, which must be brought where the subject matter ²⁸⁵ of the action is located, and transitory actions, which ordinarily may be brought wherever the defendant works, lives, or has a principal office.

The Court first explained the derivation and purpose of the distinction in Crook v. Pitcher, 61 Md. 510, 513 (1884) and recounted that explanation and provided a broader history in Kane v. Schulmeyer, 349 Md. 424 , 708 A.2d 1038 (1998). As we observed in Kane , the venue doctrine “has an ancient lineage, one that originally was tied to the early, and long-since discarded, role of jurors as knowledgeable witnesses rather than as impartial determiners of fact based on evidence heard in court.” Id. at 430 , 708 A.2d at 1041 . It was important, in that earlier time, for plaintiffs to state with precision not just the county but also the particular district or “hundred” within which the cause of action arose, in order that the sheriff might summon as jurors persons who were presumed to be acquainted with the nature of the transaction they were chosen to try. That requirement, tying venue to the immediate neighborhood where the cause of action arose, continued into the Seventeenth Century in England, but was eventually found inconvenient, especially in transactions that might happen partly in one place and partly in another; “hence,” the Crook v. Pitcher Court noted, “arose the distinction between local and transitory actions.” 61 Md. at 513 .

The Court explained: “If the cause of action could only have arisen in a particular place, the action is local, and the suit must be brought in the county or place in which it arose. Actions for damages to real property, actions on the case for nuisances, or for the obstruction of one’s right of way, are according to all the authorities local. On the other hand, actions for injuries to the person, or to personal property, actions on contracts, and in fact all actions founded on transactions, which might have taken place anywhere, are transitory.” Id. (citation omitted).

There has been little change over the years to the requirement that a local action be brought where the cause of action ²⁸⁶ arose. Most of the changes in the venue rules have come by statute and have concerned where transitory actions may be brought. See Kane, supra, 349 Md. at 432-34 , 708 A.2d at 1042-44 . The