Judge won’t reconsider damage cap ruling in ‘Riot Act’ case

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A federal judge will not allow Baltimore to ask for the Court of Appeals to rule on a novel question of state law, leaving in place his decision refusing to cap potential damages in a lawsuit by dozens of businesses suing for damage sustained in the 2015 unrest following the death of Freddie Gray.

The city had asked U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III to reconsider his December ruling that the state’s cap on damages in a lawsuit against a local government does not apply to complaints under the Maryland Riot Act. He denied the motion Monday.

The city had argued the question of whether the Local Government Tort Claims Act, or LGTCA, applies to lawsuits under the Riot Act has never been addressed and should have been certified as a question of law to the state’s highest court.

Russell said the court may alter or amend a final judgment only if the controlling law has changed, if there is new evidence or if there was a clear error of law or manifest injustice.

The city argued there had been a clear error of law, but Russell said he was “not persuaded” because the city either raised or should have raised the arguments in its initial motion for declaratory judgment.

“The arguments reveal that, in essence, the Mayor and City Council disagree with the Court’s ruling and merely seek to relitigate it. This is not a valid use of a motion for reconsideration and the Mayor and City Council’s arguments do not establish a clear error of law,” Russell wrote.

Russell also found the city’s arguments “logically inconsistent,” as the city claimed the court erred because the law is clear while also claiming that the law is unclear and that, therefore, the question should be certified to the Court of Appeals.

“In essence, the Mayor and City Council maintain that the LGTCA damages cap‘s applicability to Riot Act claims is settled law on the one hand, and that it is a novel issue of Maryland law on the other,” Russell wrote.

The LGTCA provides a local government cannot be liable for more than $200,000 in damages per individual claim or for a total of $500,000 for claims arising from the same occurrence for damages due to tortious acts or omissions. The lawsuit is the first to make use of the Riot Act since the 1960s and the first since the passage of the LGTCA. The Riot Act creates a cause of action when a municipality had notice of a riot and the ability to prevent damage.

Russell ruled the Riot Act allows the injured party to recover actual damages without exception. The LGTCA repealed conflicting remedy provisions enacted by local governments but did not refer to state laws such as the Riot Act, Russell said.

The most recent use of the Riot Act came in 1968, when businesses sued over civil unrest following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The LGTCA was enacted in 1987. Russell notes that Maryland’s appellate courts have not ruled on whether the cap applies to Riot Act claims but that so far they have not extended it to statutory torts.

City Solicitor Andre M. Davis did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. An attorney for the plaintiffs, Peter K. Hwang of Sung & Hwang LLP in Columbia, was not immediately available for comment.

The case is Chae Brothers et al. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore et al., 1:17-cv-01657.