192 Md. App. 438 - Williams v. Work’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 district · 10 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Although Rule 15-1001(b) does not require formal joinder, the failure to include a known statutory beneficiary as a plaintiff or a ‘use plaintiff in a wrongful death action and to settle without providing for that beneficiary can be analogized to the failure to join a necessary party in an action where joinder is required. In our view, because of the one action rule, the failure to do so is a ‘defect’ or ‘mistake’ of jurisdictional proportions in the proceeding, which may be raised at any time.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wallace & Gale Asbestos Settlement Trust v. Carter · University of Maryland Medical System Corp. v. Muti

2. ““In common law pleading, a ‘use plaintiff; is ‘[a] plaintiff for whom action is brought in another’s name.’ Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th Ed., p. 1547. As explained above, Rule 15-1001(b) requires that all the statutory beneficiaries be made plaintiffs in a wrongful death action, whether or not they join. When they do not join in the action, they are identi fied as ‘use plaintiffs’ and the action proceeds to their use or benefit. All known beneficiaries must be ‘plaintiffs’ under the rule and the court is put on notice that any recovery is for the benefit of all plaintiffs, joined or otherwise, in accordance with their statutory interest, whether that interest is represented by an award of damages as the result of a trial, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-904(c), or by a settlement, Walker, 318 Md. at 518 , 569 A.2d [at 645]. Notice to the use plaintiffs is required, but the duty owed to them as plaintiffs extends beyond mere notice. That continuing duty is, in our view, made clear in Walker, 318 Md. at 524 , 569 A.2d [at 648], where the Court explained that the claims of beneficiaries in such actions are not severable. As the Court stated: ‘A judgment should not have been entered in the circuit court unless it included the interests of all of the known beneficiaries.’ Id.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Wallace & Gale Asbestos Settlement Trust v. Carter · University of Maryland Medical System Corp. v. Muti

3. ““To interpret the Rule as simply a notice rule disregards: (1) the representative nature of wrongful death actions; (2) the language of Rule 15-1001(b), requiring that ‘all persons who are or may be entitled by law to damages by reason of the wrongful death shall be named as plaintiffs whether or not they join in the action[;]’ and (3) the provisions of Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-904(c) relating to the award of damages to the statutory ‘beneficiaries’ ‘proportional to injury resulting from the wrongful death.’ ””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. University of Maryland Medical System Corp. v. Muti · Carter v. Wallace & Gale Asbestos Settlement Trust