County’s money battle revived

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Baltimore County has been given another chance to answer a $13,000 question.

A White Marsh couple’s lawsuit seeking to recover money seized by police in a drug raid is headed back to district court to determine if the county should be afforded a new trial.

The county’s request previously had been denied, leading to a circuit court appeal heard in October.

Judge Lawrence R. Daniels, in a mid-December ruling docketed earlier this month, remanded the new trial question because the denial was issued as a chambers ruling.

“[W]ithout knowledge of the reasons for the trial court’s decision, we cannot say, with certainty, that the trial court ‘fairly’ exercised its discretion,” Daniels wrote, referring to guidelines for granting a new trial motion set out in a 1988 Court of Special Appeals case.

The case will be heard Feb. 23 in Baltimore County District Court in Catonsville, according to court records.

Police raided the home of Rogelio and Rosario Simon in February 2006 using a warrant and found 67 guns and small amounts of marijuana, methamphetamine and prescription medication in addition to the money. But only a few guns and the drugs were connected to Marlon Simon, the couple’s grown son and the one under investigation on federal drug charges.

Rogelio and Rosario Simon sued the county in November 2007, seeking to recover his guns and her money. The county claims it no longer has the firearms or the money, having turned everything over to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But no one from the county appeared at the January 2008 district court trial in the case, leading to a $13,063 default judgment for Rosario Simon. Vinson said during the circuit court hearing that an error in the county’s mail system led to the district court absence.

Daniels, during the October hearing, took the county to task for failing to appear in district court. In his ruling, the judge also notes the county only hinted at its legal arguments with a boilerplate, “bald assertion” in its motion for a new trial.

But Daniels ultimately decided the county could have mounted a “meritorious defense” in district court to the Simons’ lawsuit and was therefore denied a “substantial right” by the lower court’s ruling.

“[T]he most fundamental right of a party against whom suit has been brought is the right to present a meritorious defense,” Daniels wrote.

The firearm lawsuit was dismissed when MacVaugh learned the county no longer had Rogelio Simon’s antique and modern weapons, which were returned to Simon in the fall.