24/12 - Maryland Courts

Under the common law, state and local governments, and their agencies, have
sovereign or governmental immunity. 26
See Condon v. State, 332 Md. 481, 492, 632 A.2d
753 (1993). For various policy reasons, the General Assembly may choose to waive that
immunity by statute, usually to a limited extent and sometimes in conjunction with conferring
immunity on State actors or employees. 27 On occasion, a question arises as to whether other
organizations that serve a public purpose also partake of sovereign immunity. 28
In 1983, the Court of Special Appeals considered whether a volunteer fire department
was protected by governmental immunities against claims related to allegedly negligent
efforts to extinguish a fire. Utica Mutual Ins. Co. v. Gaithersburg-Wash. Grove Fire Dep’t,
53 Md. App. 589, 455 A.2d 987, cert. denied, 296 Md. 224 (1983). The intermediate
appellate court answered the question in the negative, finding that there was insufficient
evidence in the record that the particular volunteer fire department qualified as a government
entity. The court further held that, in any event, the members of the volunteer fire
department were not public officials, and thus were not entitled to public official or
26 In certain respects, not pertinent to the current discussion, the immunity of local
governments is more limited than that of the State. See Baltimore County v. RTKL, 380 Md.
670, 675, 846 A.2d 433 (2004).
27 E.g., Maryland Tort Claims Act, Maryland Code, State Government Article, §12-101
et. seq.; CJ §5-522.
28 See, e.g., Harrison v. MVA, 302 Md. 634, 490 A.2d 694 (1985) (determining
whether Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund has sovereign immunity); Central Collection
Unit v. DLD Associates LP, 112 Md. App. 502, 685 A.2d 873 (1996) (analyzing whether
Injured Workers Insurance Fund is an instrumentality of the State for purposes of sovereign
immunity).
23