Tucker v. Woolery

JAMES S. GETTY, Judge, Retired, Specially Assigned. At the root of this appeal is a divorce action between Welvin C. and Bonita D. Goodwin, filed in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. The Goodwins were partners with Jesse Tucker and nine others in the ownership of twenty-three properties. All of the partners except Bonita Goodwin are the appellants (hereinafter the “partners”) in this appeal.

In February of 1989, the court in the divorce action issued an order appointing the appellees, Benjamin Woolery and Paul Rosenberg (hereinafter the “trustees”), “Special Masters and Trustees for the purpose of determining the identity of the parties[’] mar[it]al property, the value of the marital property and marital debts and for the purpose of selling the parties[’] marital property....” Claiming an interest in the partnership properties that were erroneously deemed to be marital property (see Wilen v. Wilen, 61 Md.App. 337 -351-53, 486 A.2d 775 (1985), the partners petitioned to intervene in the divorce action, and the court permitted them to do so. 1 In November of 1990, while the Goodwin divorce was still underway, the partners filed their initial complaint against the trustees for “misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance, breach of ²⁹⁸ fiduciary duty, and request for an accounting.” The partners complained that the trustees had “done nothing in accordance with their appointment as trustees except to injure the Plaintiffs .... ” The partners alleged, in essence, that the trustees were negligent and had breached their fiduciary duties by failing to sell or pay debts on any of the properties. Two weeks after filing the complaint, the partners filed a motion in the divorce action to remove the trustees. The partners referred to their complaint against the trustees and argued that, because of the complaint, the trustees now had a conflict of interest and that the trustees were “attempting to continue their fraud” by requesting that monies held in escrow in the divorce case be used to pay counsel fees arising from ‘the complaint. At the conclusion of a three day hearing, the motion to remove the trustees from the divorce action was denied on January 16, 1991, and the divorce case was settled the following May.

In August of 1992, the trustees moved for summary judgment in the instant case, arguing that they were judicially immune from suit and that, in any event, the partners were collaterally estopped from pursuing the action, because their motion to remove the trustees from the Goodwin divorce case was denied by the court on January 16,1991. After a hearing, the court granted the motion for summary judgment without comment. The appellants present two questions in this appeal. They ask: I. Does the appointment of a party as a trustee and/or special master by the [circuit cjourt create absolute judicial immunity from suit?

II

Does the doctrine of collateral estoppel apply (1) where the decision in the first suit was interlocutory, (2) where new events have transpired and new facts will be presented which could not have been litigated below, (3) where new issues are to be resolved by the [cjourt, and (4) the parties entered an agreement stating that the resolution ²⁹⁹ of a prior case would be without prejudice to the subsequent case? Because our answer to the first question resolves the matter, we shall not address the second question. We note, however, that when the divorce case was dismissed by mutual consent of the parties, on June 19, 1991, the interlocutory order denying the motion to remove the trustees was then reviewable on appeal from the final judgment dismissing the divorce action. Once the divorce case was dismissed, there was no basis for any action by the partners.

We note, however, that the nine partners should never have been permitted to intervene in the first place. “[WJhere an action is founded upon judicial conduct, a judge will enjoy absolute immunity from liability for damages if, in performing that conduct, the judge had general subject matter jurisdiction.... ” Parker v. State, 92 Md.App. 540, 551 , 609 A.2d 347 , cert. granted, 328 Md. 462 , 615 A.2d 262 (1992). Thus, judges acting with subject matter jurisdiction “ ‘are not liable to civil actions for their judicial acts, even when such acts are in excess of their jurisdiction and are alleged to have been done maliciously and corruptly.’ ” Id. at 546 , 609 A.2d 347 (citation omitted). See generally Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 355-56 , 98 S.Ct. 1099, 1104 , 55 L.Ed.2d 331 (1978); Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 553-54 , 87 S.Ct. 1213, 1217 , 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967); Mireles v. Waco, —U.S. —, 112 S.Ct. 286, 288 , 116 L.Ed.2d 9 (1991) (per curiam). “[T]he factors determining whether an act by a judge is a ‘judicial’ one relate to the nature of the act itself, i.e., whether it is a function normally performed by a judge, and to the expectations of the parties, i.e., whether they dealt with the judge in his judicial capacity.” Stump, 435 U.S. at 362 , 98 S.Ct. at 1107 . The trustees, of course, are not judges.

We are nevertheless convinced that they are entitled to some degree of immunity. As the Supreme Court explained in Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 335 , 103 S.Ct. 1108, 1115 , 75 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983), “the common law provided absolute immunity from subsequent damages liability for all persons—governmental or oth ³⁰⁰ erwise—who were integral parts of the judicial process.” The State of Maryland adopted the common law of England with the enactment of Article 5 of the Declaration of Rights. “When judicial immunity is extended to officials other than judges, it is because their judgments are ‘functional[ly] comparable]’ to those of judges—that is, because they, too, ‘exercise a discretionary judgment’ as part of their function.” Antoine v. Byers & Anderson, Inc., — U.S. —, 113 S.Ct. 2167, 2171 , 124 L.Ed.2d 391 (1993) (holding that court reporters are afforded no discretion in transcribing court proceedings and therefore are not entitled to judicial immunity for failing to produce transcripts in timely fashion). [I]n determining whether the protection afforded by the doctrine of absolute immunity is to be expanded to lesser judicial personnel, it is imperative always to bear in mind the reasons underlying the creation of the immunity shield. “The proper approach is to consider the precise function at issue, and to determine whether the officer is likely to be unduly inhibited in the performance of the function by the threat of liability for tortious conduct.” McCray v. State of Maryland, 456 F.2d 1, 3 (4th Cir.1972) (citation omitted). The immunity of officers of the court “derives, not from [the officers’] formal association with the judicial process, but from the fact that they exercise a discretion similar to that exercised by judges. Like judges, they require the insulation of absolute immunity to assure the courageous exercise of their discretionary duties.” Id.

(holding that the Clerk of the Baltimore City Court was not entitled to judicial immunity for failing to file court documents since the filing of documents is a mandatory, rather than a discretionary, function). We addressed the issue of immunity from civil tort action involving judicial officers in Rice v. Dunn, 81 Md.App. 510 , 568 A.2d 1125 (1990). In holding that District Court Commissioners were immune from civil liability, we focused on the following three-part test: 1. Whether the act was performed by a judicial officer. ³⁰¹ 2.

Whether the act was discretionary rather than ministerial. 3. Whether the act was within the jurisdiction of the officer. Applying the test to the present case, the appellees were unquestionably judicial officers when the court appointed them “Special Masters and Trustees.” Md.Rule 2—541(a)(3) provides that a master, including a “special” master “serves at the pleasure of the appointing court and is an officer of the court in which the referred matter is pending.” There can be no question that the trustees in the present case performed discretionary functions. The court in the divorce action assigned them tasks that were essential to the resolution of the case and were judicial in nature.

The court directed the trustees to identify marital property and debts, determine the value of the property and debts, and sell the property “at private or public sale and report the proceed[s] of the sale to the