Turner v. Housing Authority

BELL, Chief Judge. In this case, Yolanda Turner, the appellant, in addition to issues relating to the attempts by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the appellee, as landlord, to terminate her lease, presents the question whether, based on a ruling by a federal district court in another case, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City may reinstate one of its judgments that the Court of Special Appeals had previously reversed and remanded. When initially in the Circuit Court, the appellant argued that the court was without jurisdiction to consider the case, citing in support a Consent Decree in which the City and a representative of a class had entered into in 1984, providing for grievance hearings for public housing tenants prior to eviction. The Circuit Court determined that the Consent Decree did not apply and proceeded to dispose of the case, on the merits, in favor of the appellee.

The Court of Special Appeals saw it differently, deciding that the Consent Decree did, in fact, apply. Thus it reversed and remanded to the Circuit Court, where subsequently, the appellee, relying on the intervening decision of the United States District Court vacating the Consent Decree, moved to have the previous judgment reinstated. Agreeing with the appellee, the Circuit Court concluded that it had that authority and so reinstated its prior judgment. We shall reverse. ²⁶ The premises leased by the appellant from the appellee were the subject of a search and seizure warrant, which, upon execution uncovered “... six pink-topped vials with residue, one purple-topped vial with white powder and a non-conventional smoking pipe as well as personal papers.” The appellant was arrested and charged with narcotics violations.

Subsequent laboratory analysis revealed that the non-conventional pipe contained residue of a controlled dangerous substance. Notwithstanding this occurrence, the appellee continued to accept the appellant’s rent and did so for each of the months remaining on the appellant’s lease. Thereafter, in October, less than three months after being charged with the narcotics violation, the appellant executed a new lease. 1 Less than ²⁷ three months after executing the lease, she received notice to vacate the premises. The notice alleged violations of material terms of the appellant’s lease, referring specifically to her arrest and information contained in a police report and a search and seizure warrant which led to that arrest.

That information indicated that the appellant was engaging in drug-related criminal activity on or near her leased premises. Despite being advised that she had no right to a grievance hearing, the appellant asked for an informal grievance, which was denied. Thereafter, the appellee filed, in the District Court of Maryland, sitting in Baltimore City, an action alleging that the appellant was in breach of her lease. That action was removed to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, upon the appellant’s prayer for jury trial.

It was tried in that court without a jury, the appellant having waived the jury, and judgment was entered for the appellee. One of the issues addressed in the Circuit Court was whether the appellee was bound by the Consent Decree in Lacy v. Housing Authority of Baltimore City, No. 84-2431 (D.Md.1984). In that case, a consent decree entered into by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City and its tenant required, as a matter of due process, that there be a tenant grievance hearing prior to the initiation of eviction proceedings. Relying on that consent decree, the appellant moved to dismiss the appellee’s breach of lease action.

She argued that the Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, the appellee having refused her the administrative grievance hearing before HABC to which she was entitled. ²⁸ Countering, the appellee argued that the consent decree did not apply to this case. Noting that the regulation on which the consent decree was based had been amended, it maintained that the amended regulation, and not the consent decree, applied, the former having superceded the latter. The Circuit Court agreed with the appellee and, thus, denied the motion to dismiss. It also opined: “I am satisfied by-and this in respect to the merits, also, I am satisfied by the preponderance of the evidence that the tenant in this case, Yolanda Turner, on or about August 16, 1995, had in her apartment in plain view a pipe with cocaine residue, and its inferable from that being in plain view and the fact that she left, that she knew about it or allowed another member of the household or guest under tenant’s control to have or use of or be in possession of that pipe with residue.

I therefore find that pipe with residue. I therefore find that she was involved in drug-related criminal activity at or near the premises of the dwelling unit. Being in possession of that cocaine-but in any case she is clearly charged with paraphernalia and that cocaine. Therefore, I am satisfied that the HABC was empowered to evict her accordingly.” The appellant noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals.

Although she presented five issues, only the last, “Did the trial court err by finding that a federal court consent decree did not apply in this case, thereby depriving Turner of a tenant grievance hearing?,” addresses the issue before this Court. Nor did the appellee, so far as this record reveals, ask the court to determine the effect on this case of a parallel proceeding that it filed in the federal case in the federal court to vacate the consent decree. The intermediate appellate court, in an unreported opinion, reversed the judgment of the Circuit Court. It concluded, “that the Lacy consent decree applies, and that the federal court has continuing jurisdiction to enforce it; accordingly HABC is bound by its provisions unless and until the federal court modifies the consent decree.” The court’s mandate was “JUDGMENT REVERSED. ²⁹ CASE REMANDED TO THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE CITY.

COSTS TO BE PAID BY APPELLEE.” Subsequent to the remand — indeed a little more than a month later — the Lacy consent decree was vacated by the United States District Court pursuant to the appellee’s Motion to Vacate Consent Decree. 2 Armed with this ruling, and not waiting for the resolution of the tenant’s appeal, 3 the appellee ³⁰ filed, in the Circuit Court, a motion to reinstate its earlier judgment. The court granted the motion and, thus, rejected the appellant’s contention that it was obliged to follow the mandate of the Court of Special Appeals. It reasoned: “The problem with that argument is that the underpinning of its decision was the Court of Special Appeals’ conviction that the due process provisions of the Lacy consent decree required such a tenant grievance hearing unless and until the federal court modifies the consent decree. Therefore, it is illogical that this Court should ignore the fact that the Lacy consent decree has been vacated by the federal court and that its due process requirement no longer applies to the defendant here.” Following the appellant’s appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, we issued the writ of certiorari, on our own motion, before any proceedings in that court.

At the threshold in this case is the issue of the propriety of the Circuit Court’s reinstatement of its prior judgment, follow ³¹ ing a judgment by the Court of Special Appeals reversing and remanding that judgment. The appellant argues that a trial court may not reinstate its judgment after that judgment has been reversed on appellate review. More specifically as relates to the case sub judice, she asserts that following a judgment by the Court of Special Appeals, the Circuit Court no longer had jurisdiction to further rule on the issues that the appellate court’s judgment resolved. Thus, the appellant says, the vacating of the Lacy consent decree, after the intermediate appellate court had issued its mandate could not have affected the court’s decision and, consequently, the ultimate resolution of the case.

She relies on Buffin v. Hernandez, 44 Md.App. 247 , 408 A.2d 393 (1979) and Korotki v. Springer, 218 Md. 191 , 145 A.2d 767 (1958). The appellee submits, on the contrary, that the Circuit Court properly reinstated its judgment. Citing Md. Rule 8-604(d) 4 and noting that, in addition to holding that the consent decree applied, the Court of Special Appeals acknowledged the continuing jurisdiction of the federal court to enforce it and that “HABC is bound by its provisions unless and until the federal court modifies the consent decree,” it concludes that the Circuit Court was justified in reinstating its judgment. Indeed, in the appellee’s view, the Circuit Court acted consistently, and in accordance, with the mandate of the intermediate appellate court.

We agree with the appellant — the Circuit Court was not empowered to grant the appellee’s motion to reinstate its judgment. This conclusion is required by our cases. The doctrine of the law of the case is well settled in this State. In Waters v. Waters, 28 Md. 11, 22 (1867), we stated: “No principle is better established than that a decision of the Court of Appeals once pronounced in any case is binding upon the court below and upon this Court in the subsequent ³² proceedings in the same case, and cannot be disregarded or called in question.

It is the law of the case binding and conclusive upon the parties, not open to question or examination afterwards in the same case.” More recently, we explained it thusly: “ ‘Once this Court has ruled upon a question properly presented on an appeal, or, if the ruling be contrary to a question that could have been raised and argued in that appeal on the then state of the record, as aforesaid, such a ruling becomes the “law of the case” and is binding on the litigants and courts alike, unless changed or modified after reargument, and neither the question decided nor the ones that could have been raised and decided are available to be raised in a subsequent appeal.’ ” (Citations omitted). Loveday v. State, 296 Md. 226, 229 , 462 A.2d 58, 59 (1983) (quoting Fidelity-Baltimore Nat’l Bank & Trust Co. v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins.Co., 217 Md. 367, 372 , 142 A.2d 796, 798 (1958)). See also Korotki v. Springer, 218 Md. 191, 193-194 , 145 A.2d 767, 768 (1958) (the law of the case applies whether the judgment on appeal is reversed or affirmed and it applies to “all matters decided by the appellate court”); Chayt v. Board of Zoning Appeals, 178 Md. 400, 404 , 13 A.2d 614, 616 (1940) (trial court on remand may not reduce breadth of appellate-mandated injunction against zoning violation).

Indeed, this Court has described the law of the case doctrine as “l[ying] somewhere beyond stare decisis and short of res judicata.” Tu v. State, 336 Md. 406, 416 , 648 A.2d 993, 997 (1994), citing 1B J.W. Moore, J.D. Lucas & T.S. Currier, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.401, at I-2 to I-3 (2d ed.1993) (footnotes omitted). This view is consistent with the universal application of the doctrine in both federal and state courts. See United States v. United States Smelting Refining & Mining Co., 339 U.S. 186, 198 , 70 S.Ct. 537, 544 , 94 L.Ed. 750 , 761 (1950); Barrett v. Baylor, 457 F.2d 119, 123 (7th Cir.Ill.1972); Pincus v. Pabst Brewing Co., 752 F.Supp. 871, 872-873 (E.D.Wis.1990); Kowis v. Howard, 3 Cal.4th 888 , 12 Cal.Rptr.2d 728 , 838 P.2d 250 , ³³ 251 (1992); In Re Estate of Baird, 193 Cal. 225 , 223 P. 974, 978 (1924); Alumet v. Bear Lake Grazing Co., 119 Idaho 946 , 812 P.2d 253, 257 (1991); Stroh Brewery Co. v. Director of New Mexico Dep’t of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 112 N.M. 468 , 816 P.2d 1090, 1096 (1991); Gohman v. St. Bernard, 111 Ohio St. 726 , 146 N.E. 291, 292 (1924). Thus, the cases on which the appellant relies are instructive.

In Buffin v. Hernandez, the plaintiff, having been found liable on the defendant’s counterclaim, filed at the same time a Motion to Modify Judgment and an appeal. Before the trial court ruled on the motion, the Court of Special Appeals issued its opinion affirming the trial court’s judgment. The defendant then sought a ruling on his motion. Citing Korotki v. Springer, 218 Md. at 194 , 145 A.2d at 768 , the intermediate appellate court reversed the trial court’s acceptance of jurisdiction and modification of its prior judgment, holding that a trial court no longer has jurisdiction to modify a judgment once it has been affirmed on appeal.

See 44 Md.App. at 253 , 408 A.2d at 396 . Korotki is to a similar effect. There, the appellees brought a suit in equity to rescind the sale of a grocery store which they purchased from the appellants. The trial court passed a decree dismissing the bill and the appellees appealed.

This Court reversed, see Springer v. Korotki, 215 Md. 310 , 137 A.2d 655 (1958), remanding the case “for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.” 218 Md. at 192-93 , 145 A.2d at 768 . On remand, the appellants sought to offer evidence, which they alleged to have been newly discovered and would disprove the facts found by the Court of Appeals on the previous appeal. When the court declined to hear the evidence the appellants appealed. They contended, on appeal, that the evidence proffered showed that the appellees had perpetrated a fraud, or attempted fraud, upon the court, in violation of the maxim of clean hands, and that the court was bound to hear it.

This Court did not agree. We opined: “ ‘The cases on the subject are far from clear, but we think they support the proposition that after a judgment or decree is affirmed on appeal, the lower court may not ³⁴ entertain a motion to reopen, and the same rule applies to a reversal and remand for further proceedings, as to matters decided by