Reply Motion in Rear End Truck Accident Case

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR BALTIMORE CITY, MARYLAND

MELISSA I. MCMILLEN
– Plaintiffs,

v.

JEROME T. McCANN,
– Defendant.

CASE NO. 24-C-03-001314

Plaintiffs’ Reply to Defendant’s Answer to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Judgment

Plaintiffs, U.S. Army Captain Melissa I. McMillen and Mr. Benjamin McMillen, by and through their undersigned counsel, replies to Defendant’s Answer to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. Because Defendant has offered no facts from the record to refute Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment in this rear-end truck accident case, Plaintiffs renew their motion for judgment and, in brief additional support in light of Defendant’s response, state as follows:

Defendant’s response is curious. He argues that many material facts are in dispute in this rear end accident case. Yet the only evidence he cites from the record in his ten page response is his own interrogatory response that states:

Defendant was traveling northbound on President Street (Baltimore) in a line of traffic. When the traffic light at the intersection just before the location of the accident turned green, traffic began moving forward. Defendant’s vehicle was traveling at a speed of less than 5 miles per hour when the Plaintiff’s vehicle came to a stop and the front of Defendant’s vehicle made contact with the rear of Plaintiff’s vehicle.

In other words, Defendant admits that he rear-ended Plaintiffs. He further admits that an “evidentiary presumption of negligence arises when a motor vehicle is lawfully stopped on a highway awaiting for traffic to clear before entering the intersecting highway and that vehicle is suddenly struck from behind by another vehicle.” See Defendant’s Answer to Plaintiffs’ Partial Motion for Summary Judgment, p. 8. While Defendant discusses breaking patterns and a host of other theoretical possibilities, he does not offer any facts or evidence to refute Plaintiff’s motion.

These unsupported conclusions are not the proper way to show an issue of material fact. Hurt v. Stilman & Donlan, Inc., 35 Md. App. 644 (1977). It is apodictic that to defeat a motion for summary judgment, the opposing party must demonstrate there is a genuine dispute of material facts by offering facts that would be admissible in evidence. Beatty v. Trailmaster Prods., Inc., 330 Md. 726 (1993). Defendant here has offered no fact to refute Plaintiffs’ motion for judgment. Mere allegations which do not show facts in detail and with precision and mere allusions to the existence of documents which may create a factual dispute are insufficient to prevent summary judgment. Id.

Defendant’s failure to offer material facts to rebut Plaintiffs’ motion is further demonstrated by his answer to Interrogatory #11. When asked whether Plaintiff or any other party acted in such a manner to cause or contribute to the occurrence, Defendant stated that “Plaintiff Melissa McMillen may have caused or contributed to the occurrence by stopping short in the roadway” (emphasis added). As Beatty makes clear, this kind of unsupported conclusion, which typifies Defendant’s argument, does not refute a valid motion for summary judgment.

Accordingly, this Court should enter an order granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, because Plaintiffs were not contributorily negligent and Defendant is liable for causing the accident and all damages proximately flowing from the accident.

Miller & Zois, LLC
Ronald V. Miller, Jr.
1 South St, #2450
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410)779-4600
(410)760-8922 (fax)