Appellate Court of Maryland Holds Whether PA Common Law Marriage is Valid to Maintain a Wrongful Death Claim is a Matter for the Jury to Decide

06/15/2023

Thomas
Zadnik v. Richard F. Ambinder, M.D., et al., No. 803, Sept. Term, 2022.

            Between October 2010 and April 2013,
Margaret Conway began seeing Dr. Richard Ambinder for colon cancer treatment. In
2017, Conway passed away. Subsequently, her partner, Thomas Zadnik, filed a
wrongful death complaint for medical negligence in the Circuit Court for
Baltimore City against Ambinder and Johns Hopkins Hospital. In Maryland, such
action may only be brought by the decedent’s spouse, child, or parent. The
Circuit Court granted Ambinder’s motion to dismiss, and held that Zadnik did
not have standing to bring forth the suit since Zadnik was not married to
Conway.

Zadnik appealed this decision to the
Appellate Court of Maryland, claiming he and Conway entered a valid common law
marriage in Pennsylvania, in 1998 when Pennsylvania still recognized common law
marriages. A common law marriage is a legal marriage between two people who
have not obtained a marriage license or had the marriage solemnized by a
ceremony. The Circuit Court found that Conway and Zadnik had not sufficiently
established a common law marriage through clear and convincing evidence,
because no one witnessed their wedding and they failed to publicly hold
themselves out as married.

Writing for the Appellate Court, Judge
Donald Beachley first acknowledged the doctrine of comity, noting that Maryland
has never recognized common law marriage, but that Maryland must do so if it is
recognized in another state. Judge Beachley then looked to Pennsylvania law to determine
how parties may establish a rebuttable presumption of marriage through, inter
alia, constant cohabitation, since both parties cannot be present to testify
about the marriage’s existence. Under Pennsylvania law one spouse is allowed to
testify to a common law marriage.  As
such, Judge Beachley deems the question of valid marriage as a dispute reserved
for a jury, and as a genuine dispute of material fact.

The Court also considered the Dead Man’s
Statute, CJP § 9-116, which does not allow a surviving spouse to testify on
behalf of a statement made by their deceased spouse. The Court concluded that
if a jury found a valid marriage, then the Dead Man’s Statute could not bar
Zadnik’s claim. In finding this, Judge Beachley affirmed the inapplicability of
the Dead Man’s Statute to this wrongful death suit, as a wrongful death suit is
meant to create a benefit for the surviving spouse, not to recover for the
decedent’s loss or injury. Thus, a formerly legal > marriage never procedurally recognized in Maryland could result in damages
against a Maryland defendant.

After delineating these parameters around
a common law marriage involving a wrongful death suit, the Appellate Court of
Maryland remanded this case to the Circuit Court for further proceedings. Once
the jury decides on the validity of the marriage, the ramifications will ring
prescient for medical malpractice cases in Maryland, as Washington D.C. and
pre-2005 Pennsylvania recognize common law marriages, both of whom have
residents often litigating in Maryland courts.

Ali Mahdi, Summer Associate