Saba v. Darling

GILBERT, Chief Judge. Markus Saba sued Charles Darling in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County in a suit grounded on assault and battery as well as negligence. Through discovery, counsel for Saba obtained a copy of an insurance policy covering Darling. The policy specifically excluded payment to others if bodily injury was intended by the insured.

Not surpris ⁴⁸⁹ ingly, before the jury was impanelled in the matter, Saba dismissed his claim of assault and battery. 1 The jury returned a verdict in favor of Darling. Asserting error in the trial judge’s refusal to instruct the jury that simple contributory negligence is not a bar to recovery in a suit asserting gross negligence, Saba has appealed to this Court. He asks that we establish that principle by case law, reverse the trial court, and remand for a new trial. The record discloses that the concept of simple contributory vis-a-vis gross negligence arose out of the jury’s deliberations.

During that time the jury sent a note to the trial judgé asking whether they were required to decide in favor of Darling if they found any degree of negligence on the part of Saba. Astutely seizing upon that question, Saba’s counsel, for the first time, theorized that simple contributory negligence “is not a defense to gross negligence.” The judge declined to so advise the jury. There is disagreement in the testimony as to just what Saba did immediately preceding his being struck by Darling. Whether he “shadow-boxed” or used “karate motions” in close proximity to Darling is cast in doubt by conflicts in the evidence.

Whether Saba was struck in a frontal assault or from behind is equally blurred. What is clear, however, is that Darling, willfully and deliberately, punched Saba in the jaw. Evidence in the case revealed that Darling had a history of fighting when he was under the influence of alcohol. Saba argued that Darling, by drinking alcohol, demonstrated such indifference to the rights of others that he should be found liable for gross negligence.

On that tenuous basis the trial court permitted the jury to consider the question of ⁴⁹⁰ whether Darling was grossly negligent. The judge instructed the jury that, however, “[a] plaintiff cannot recover if his negligence is the cause of his injury. The Defendant has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the Plaintiffs negligence, if any, was the cause of the Plaintiffs injury.” Indubitably, the jury was troubled by the fact that Saba had apparently provoked the fight. It asked clarification on the question of the degree of contributory negligence required on Saba’s part before he would be barred from any recovery.

Saba asserts that, although there is no Maryland case that has so held, it is black-letter law that simple contributory negligence will not bar recovery where a defendant’s acts amount to gross negligence. From that premise, Saba proceeds to contend that the circuit court erred in refusing to supplement its instructions so that the jury could receive instructions grounded on what is reflected in § 65 of Prosser and Keeton on Torts (5th Ed., 1984) and in § 482 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965). Section 65 of Prosser consists of twelve pages. In the concluding paragraph, he states: “The ordinary contributory negligence of the plaintiff is to be set over against the ordinary negligence of the defendant, to bar the action.

But where the defendant’s conduct is actually intended to inflict harm upon the plaintiff, there is a difference, not merely in degree but in the kind of fault; and the defense never has been extended to such intentional torts. Thus it is no defense to assault or battery. The same is true of that aggravated form of negligence, approaching intent, which has been characterized variously as ‘willful,’ ‘wanton,’ or ‘reckless,’ as to which all courts have held that ordinary negligence on the part of the plaintiff will not bar recovery. Such conduct differs from negligence not only in degree but in kind, and in the social condemnation attached to it.

Some courts have said that in such cases the plaintiff's conduct is not the ‘proximate cause’ of the harm; but ⁴⁹¹ the causal connection appears to be basically the same as in any ordinary contributory negligence case. It is perhaps more a form of comparative fault, where the court is refusing to set up the lesser fault