the title. In affirming the Circuit Court’s decision to grant Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment, the Court of Special Appeals held “that an ‘owner’ under the Housing Code must be a person who has control over the title itself. Because appellee, as an individual, lacked the legal right to sell and convey title to the property, it follows that appellee was not an “owner” for purposes of the Housing Code.”Allen v. Dackman, 184 Md.App. 1, 8 (2009). In the Court of Appeals, as in the lower courts, Plaintiff
is asserting that this holding is wrong because it is based on the misconception that in order for one be an “owner” as that term is defined by the Baltimore City Housing Code (hereinafter the Code), one must possess the “legal right to sell and convey” the property at issue. Plaintiff ’s argument is that the intermediate Court’s holding is directly contrary to the plain language of the Code and, if permitted to stand, would undermine its purpose, which is to protect children from lead
poisoning.Brown v. Dermer, 357 Md. 344, 367, 744 A.2d 47 (2000); Brooks v. Lewin Realty, 378 Md. 70, 89, 835 A.2d 616 (2003) and to:
establish and maintain basic requirements, standards and conditions essential for the protection of the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the public … in the City of Baltimore; to establish minimum standards governing the condition, use and operation, occupancy and maintenance of dwellings … in order to make the dwelling safe, sanitary and fit for human habitation.
Baltimore City Code (1983 Repl.Vol.), Art. 13, § 103. Although there are other means to hold one that who was not in legal title at the time of the alleged wrong-doing liable under the Baltimore City Housing Code, the Court of Special Appeals’ limited interpretation of the word “owner” has the potential to limit a child’s chance of recovery under the Code. As with Jackson, those involved in lead-paint poisoning litigation will anxiously await the court’s decision after argument in December.
Conclusion Almost every day, new issues arise in the context of lead
paint litigation which challenge lawyers on both sides of the bar. Hardly a week goes by when some enterprising attorney does not come up with a new theory to advance their side of the case. Accordingly, attorneys involved in this field must keep current in areas of law ranging from basic negligence to statutory construction to insurance coverage issues and everything in between. Creative legal thinking is a must if an attorney wishes to succeed. Like the common-law itself, lead- paint litigation and the law that governs it, is ever evolving. Notwithstanding laudable efforts by government agencies and private organization, lead-paint poisoning is still a major problem in Baltimore and other older cities. Te civil justice system plays an integral role in ensuring that landlords comply with the law and that the city’s housing is safe.
Biography Brian S. Brown, Saul E. Kerpelman & Associates, PA,
received a B.S. in finance from Ithaca College in 1982. He obtained his JD from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1985 and his L.L.M. in 1991. He has been a trial attorney for over 24 years and has tried well over 100 tort jury trials of all types and seriousness. For the last 7 ½ years, he has been practicing at the law office of Saul E. Kerpelman & Associates, PA. Te six attorney practice is devoted exclusively to the representation of children who have been exposed to lead-based paint. He is lead trial counsel and has received several multi-million dollar verdicts on behalf of these children, including the many of the largest received in Maryland in contested lead-paint cases He has served as both trial and appellate counsel in the two leading lead- paint insurance coverage cases in Maryland, USAA v. Riley, 393 Md. 55 (2006) and Maryland Cas. Co. v. Hanson, 169 Md.App. 484 (2006).
28 Trial Reporter / Winter 2010
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