Civil Practice – Court dismisses suit against Maryland governor and Supreme Court justices

Where individuals who did not receive procedural protections in civil suits sued the Maryland governor and Supreme Court of Maryland justices, claiming they should have taken steps to require compliance with the statute, a divided court held the plaintiffs lacked standing.

Background

Members of the military on active duty receive procedural protections in civil suits. Plaintiffs—several servicemembers and their spouses—allege that Maryland failed to comply with these protections. So they sued the Governor of Maryland and the Justices of the Supreme Court of Maryland, claiming they should have taken steps available to them in their respective positions to require compliance with the federal statute. The district court rejected plaintiffs’ claims.

Standing

Standing’s traceability prong demands that a plaintiff’s alleged injury be “fairly . . . traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not . . . the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Satisfying this traceability requirement is especially difficult when a plaintiff’s injury results most immediately from the conduct of a third party not before the court.

So when a plaintiff’s injury results from third-party conduct, the plaintiff can satisfy traceability through either of two showings: (i) the defendant’s action had a determinative or coercive effect on the third-party’s
conduct or (ii) the third party’s conduct was the predictable effect of the defendant’s action. A claimed failure to remind officials to follow federal law doesn’t satisfy either one.

Analysis

Here, the action plaintiffs challenge is the justices’ failure to promulgate a rule or otherwise act to require compliance with the Relief Act‘s procedural protections. The relevant third-party conduct is the state-court clerks’ issuance of writs of garnishment, which plaintiffs argue violated the Relief Act.

The fatal flaw with plaintiffs’ traceability argument, however, is the tenuous causal link between the justices’ actions and the clerks’ conduct. Plaintiffs’ theory is essentially that “but for the Defendants’ failure to ensure [Maryland’s] laws and rules of procedure relating to enrollment of purported foreign judgments [and] garnishments” complied with the Relief Act, “Plaintiffs would not have sustained any damages or losses.”

But the justices’ inaction neither coerced nor determined the clerks’ decisions to domesticate the judgments and issue the writs of garnishment. The clerks did not need a Maryland rule of civil procedure to understand and comply with their federal obligations—they were already legally obligated to do so. They simply needed to read the Relief Act.

Plaintiffs’ theory essentially posits that the clerks would not have violated federal law if the Maryland Rules included the same procedural protections as the Relief Act (or required compliance with it). But plaintiffs have presented no evidence that the clerks would have acted differently if a redundant state rule such as this existed. So their theory of causation is precisely the sort of speculative inquiry that cannot satisfy traceability.

Second, plaintiffs have failed to show that the clerks’ domestications and issuance of writs of garnishment were the predictable effect of the justices’ inaction. State officials are required, and should be expected, to comply with binding federal law, not ignore it. And plaintiffs have presented no evidence that Maryland courts and clerks ignore binding federal laws unless incorporated or flagged by state-court rules or procedures.

Plaintiffs lack standing to sue the Governor for the same reasons. Plaintiffs allege that the Governor “is charged with enforcement” of Maryland’s Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act. But this merely recognizes the Governor’s general executive authority. Plaintiffs have not explained—and cannot explain—how anything the Governor did or did not do relates to the clerks’ allegedly unlawful conduct.

Futility

In their proposed second amended complaint, plaintiffs sought to expand the list of defendants to include the State of Maryland, as well as the administrative judges and administrative clerks of the District Courts of Maryland for Anne Arundel and Garrett Counties, all in their official capacity. These changes failed to cure plaintiffs’ lack of standing because they still do not allege facts showing how their injury is traceable to acts taken by the named administrative judges and administrative clerks.

It remains unclear what plaintiffs suggest that the administrative judges and administrative clerks did or failed to do that led to plaintiffs’ injury. Nor do plaintiffs provide any reason to think that the administrative judges’ and administrative clerks’ acts or omissions had a determinative, coercive or predictable effect on the issuance of the judgments and writs.

Vacated and remanded.

Dissenting opinion

Gregory, J., dissenting:

The justices’ rules have a predictable and determinative effect on the administrative judges’ and clerks’ actions, so I would hold that plaintiffs maintain standing to proceed with their suit

Rouse v. Fader, Case No. 25-1004, March 24, 2026. 4th Cir. (Richardson), from DMD at Baltimore (Bredar). Phillip R. Robinson for appellants. Kevin Michael Cox for appellees. VLW 026-2-103. 33 pp.

Full-Text Opinion

VLW 026-2-103
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