Shanks v. Williams

Lowe, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Both of these appeals derive from a litigiously tenacious litigant’s refusal to accept an unfavorable declaration of her rights regarding a right of way over her property. The issue was decided by judgment of the Circuit Court for Carroll County in 1975 from which no appeal was taken. Apparently, however, over three years after judgment she did try to "amend” the proceedings by adding new defendants.

Obdurate in her convictions, she has, in lieu of appealing the judgment, sought to attack it collaterally in numerous ways. In 1978 the appellees were compelled to obtain an injunction to keep her from blocking the right of way declared in 1975. In 1979 she petitioned the court in equity to declare her rights under the declaration of rights she had received from it in 1975, to which appellees demurred propitiously. The sustaining of that demurrer (in January 1982) is the subject of Appeal No. 772.

Appeal No. 771 results from another assault on the 1975 decree in the form of a Motion to Revise Judgment pursuant to Md. Rule 625 a. 1 While conceding by silence that no fraud or irregularity underlay that decree, appellant claims that it was entered as the result of a "mistake” made by the trial judge signified, according to appellant, by his having preliminarily expressed as a fact at trial that which contradicted the predicate for his ultimate judgment. The court denied the motion to revise since there was no evidence or allegation of fraud or irregularity, and the "mistake” con ⁶⁷² templated by the rule is a far cry from that "mistake” upon which appellant relied. Hughes v. Beltway Homes, Inc., 276 Md. 382, 386-387 (1975); Bernstein v. Kapneck, 46 Md. App. 231, 239-240 (1980). Appellant does not question that ruling here.

She complains only that the judge awarded attorneys’ fees against her after finding that the motion to revise the 1975 judgment was "frivolous and without substantial merit.” Appellant’s only complaint regarding Appeal No. 771 is that the trial court erred (i.e., abused its discretion) in awarding such fees pursuant to Md. Rule 604 b which states that: "In an action or part of an action, if the court finds that any proceeding was (1) in bad faith, (2) without substantial justification, or (3) for purposes of delay the court shall require the moving party to pay to the adverse party the amount of the costs thereof and the reasonable expenses incurred by the adverse party in opposing such proceeding, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.” Obviously recognizing that the demurrer in Appeal No. 772 (which had been heard sometime past but at that time had not yet been decided) related to the same case and was directed against another collateral prong of attack upon the