Military families’ suit against MD Supreme Court justices gets tossed

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The United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that three military couples whose bank accounts were wrongfully frozen could not sue Maryland Supreme Court justices for failing to ensure district court clerks complied with the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

The decision prompted a dissent that accused the majority of rendering federal military protections toothless. The case also highlighted a potential loophole in Maryland’s rules for civil procedure that the plaintiffs alleged a predatory door-to-door salesman who targeted military families had exploited to evade the federal protections.

Phillip Robinson of the Silver Spring-based Consumer Law Center filed a petition for a rehearing on Tuesday, arguing that the salesman explicitly chose Maryland for his collection efforts because of the “lax process and procedures” overseen by the Maryland Supreme Court’s justices. The 4th Circuit panel had held last month that the justices were the wrong defendants.

“The Panel Majority’s rationalization amounts to a fiction contrary to actual Maryland law,” Robinson wrote in his Tuesday petition.

At issue in the case are three dubious out-of-state judgments, each worth thousands of dollars, entered against the military couples and later domesticated by state court clerks in Maryland. Even though the judgments had been vacated, effectively making them “a piece of paper that said judgment on it,” according to Robinson, the Maryland clerks issued writs of garnishment against each couple, freezing their bank accounts.

The 4th Circuit panel unanimously held that the process followed by the Maryland clerks did not honor the federal servicemembers relief law, which was passed by Congress in 2003 to allow servicemembers to focus on their military duties by pausing their legal burdens. It requires the presentation of an affidavit stating whether a civil defendant is in military service and, if so, guarantees servicemembers and their spouses counsel to protect them against default judgments.

“Had an attorney been appointed, as required by the SCRA, that attorney would have seen what I’ve seen,” Robinson said during oral arguments.

The Maryland courts did not require an affidavit or appoint an attorney. Although the plaintiffs settled with the salesman they had alleged filed the dubious judgments for overpriced educational materials, they said the state supreme court’s justices failed to create a rule or require compliance with the federal relief law’s protections.

“There’s never been a case like this before, that I know of,” Robinson said.

The panel ruled 2-1 that although the plaintiffs’ injuries arose from violations of the relief law, Maryland’s governor and high court justices were not proper defendants because the plaintiff’s injuries were “not traceable to their acts or omissions.”

Fourth Circuit Judge Roger Gregory wrote in a dissent that the military families “were forced to bear an impossible burden” because the state’s justices did not create rules to mandate compliance with the relief act.

“Congress placed the burden on courts to insulate servicemembers from harm, whether that harm is the result of pure negligence or malintent,” Gregory wrote. “The majority today limits Plaintiffs’ ability to receive redress for their injuries.”