The case concerned Baltimore City Ordinance 307, which banned cigarette billboard advertising in designated zones; plaintiff Penn Advertising, a billboard owner in those zones, sued the City seeking to enjoin the ordinance on grounds that it violated the First Amendment's protection of commercial speech, was preempted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, and was preempted by Maryland state law. The court granted the City's motion for summary judgment, finding no genuine issues of material fact and resolving the claims as pure questions of law. It upheld the ordinance under the Central Hudson test for commercial speech restrictions, held that the ordinance did not trigger federal preemption because it imposed no additional labeling or advertising requirements, and concluded that state law on cigarette sales to minors did not occupy the field of billboard advertising regulation.
The case involved plaintiff Leon Neufeld, who installed a ten-foot satellite dish in his front yard in violation of Baltimore City's zoning rules requiring a thirty-foot setback and a special permit, resulting in eleven criminal convictions and fines. After the city enacted Ordinance 266 imposing stricter size limits on satellite dishes, Neufeld sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming constitutional violations and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The court had previously held that the ordinance's size restrictions were preempted by FCC regulations under 47 C.F.R. § 25.104 to the extent they unreasonably limited satellite reception, but that the independent setback violation precluded any § 1983 liability or attorney fees. On the pending motions for summary judgment and reconsideration, the court denied relief on the as-applied claims and attorney fees, granted limited declaratory and injunctive relief regarding the preempted provisions, and scheduled further briefing on whether the setback ordinance applied to the original installation under state property law.
The case involved a jury verdict awarding $2.5 million to Westfarm Associates against defendants International Fabricare Institute and Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission for tort damages. After judgment was entered, WSSC moved to reduce its liability to $200,000 under the cap provided by the Maryland Local Government Tort Claims Act. The court denied the motion, holding that WSSC had waived the defense by failing to plead the statutory cap as an affirmative defense in its answer or raise it at any point before or during the trial. The court reasoned that such a limitation on liability constitutes an avoidance that must be timely asserted under federal procedural rules to avoid prejudicing the opposing parties, who might have otherwise addressed issues like the number of occurrences or pre-effective date damages.
The case concerned groundwater contamination with the hazardous solvent tetrachloroethylene (PCE) beneath land owned by plaintiff Westfarm Associates. Westfarm sued defendant International Fabricare Institute (IFI), a dry-cleaning trade group that used and disposed of PCE on its adjacent property, and both parties brought claims against the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), which owned and operated the leaking sewer system into which IFI had poured PCE wastes. The court resolved four pending motions for summary judgment under CERCLA, RCRA, and state law, finding that PCE from IFI had migrated through the cracked sewer lateral into WSSC's Tech Road Sewer and that WSSC had not established a defense under CERCLA § 107(b)(3).
The case involved a Baltimore homeowner who installed a ten-foot satellite dish in his front yard, leading to multiple criminal convictions under city zoning ordinances that limited satellite dishes to under six feet in residential areas, required permits and setbacks, and treated them more restrictively than other antennas. After removing the dish, the plaintiff sued the city and officials, claiming the ordinances were preempted by FCC regulations and violated constitutional rights, while seeking damages under federal civil rights statutes. The court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss and granted partial summary judgment to the plaintiff, declaring that the size restrictions on eight-to-twelve-foot satellite dishes in R-1 districts were preempted by 47 C.F.R. § 25.104 because they unreasonably limited satellite signal reception, and enjoining enforcement of those provisions. The decision rested on the FCC regulation's preemptive effect over conflicting local zoning rules that singled out satellite dishes, while finding no preemption of the generally applicable setback requirements.
The case involved a religious order that hired a builder for a convent construction project secured by performance and payment bonds from an insurance company. When the builder defaulted and the surety refused to complete the work or pay subcontractors, the order sued for breach of contract, bad faith, and conversion. The court dismissed the bad faith and conversion claims, holding that under Maryland law such tort claims do not arise from breaches of surety contracts. It also stayed the proceedings pending arbitration as provided in the construction contract.
