Special Appeals

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals yesterday overturned a $6 million jury award to a Baltimore woman whose child was killed by a friend's pit bull, ruling that landlords are not liable for attacks by a tenant's dog, even when the lease bans pets.The 15-page ruling was the first time the appellate court has addressed the issue, and if it survived the expected challenge, it would set a Maryland precedent in the field of landlords' rights and responsibilities.The judges sided with the owners and operators of the Northeast Baltimore apartment complex in ruling that the tenant, not the landlord, violated a no-pets section of the lease.

The O'Malley administration has joined the chorus calling upon Maryland's highest court to review a decision by the Court of Special Appeals that would render all but meaningless the extensive work local governments and citizens contribute to shaping comprehensive development plans. The state's request to file a supporting motion on behalf of the citizens group appealing the ruling, which was announced last week by state Planning Secretary Richard E. Hall, reflected both short-term and long-term concerns horrifying enough to keep an anti-sprawl advocate up all night.

Five judges and a Baltimore civil rights lawyer have asked to be considered for the soon-to-be vacant seat on the Maryland Court of Appeals.The list of applicants for the state's highest court includes Alan M. Wilner, chief judge of the Court of Special Appeals, and Barbara Kerr Howe, administrative judge of the Baltimore County Circuit Court. Howe was the only woman to apply for the seat.Also applying were Court of Special Appeals Judges James R. Eyler and Joseph F. Murphy Jr. and Baltimore County Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer announced three appointmentsto Maryland appellate courts yesterday, including a highly regarded black jurist named to fill a vacancy on the state's highest court.Robert M. Bell, a Court of Special Appeals judge, will move up to the Court of Appeals to replace Harry A. Cole, who retired in January. Judge Cole was the first black appointed to the position, in the 1970s.Diana J. Gibbon Motz, a former Maryland assistant attorney general, and Glenn T. Harrell Jr., an Upper Marlboro attorney and former state's attorney, were appointed to the Court of Special Appeals.

When he announced his retirement from Maryland's highest court in 1979, Judge Charles E. Orth Jr. said he wanted "time to relax and to do some things I want."But work remained the thing he most wanted to do, and he continued to hear cases from the bench and write legal opinions that shaped Maryland law until he died of heart failure Wednesday at Ferry Farm, his home near Annapolis. He was 80.Judge Orth was one of the five original members of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, created in 1967 as an intermediate appellate court.

State prosecutors are considering whether to appeal a Court of Special Appeals decision overturning the battery conviction of a Lutherville man for choking and beating his former girlfriend at his home in 1995.The state's second highest court on July 15 voided the conviction of Haralabos S. Stavrakas, 26, saying the jury should have been told it could consider his argument that the woman was trespassing.The court cited incomplete instructions to the jury in voiding the conviction. Stavrakas, a restaurant worker, was convicted in December of beating Meghan Fowble, an Alex.

Richard P. Gilbert, chief judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals from 1976 until his retirement last November, died early yesterday at the home of friends in White Hall. He had been ill with leukemia.A memorial service for Judge Gilbert, who was 67 and lived in Annapolis, will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Charles Street and Melrose Avenue.Recently, he was the recipient of the Heeney Award of the criminal section of the Maryland State Bar Association.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer yesterday named Judge Alan M. Wilner of the Court of Special Appeals, former chief legal aide to Gov. Marvin Mandel, as the next chief judge of Maryland's second highest court.He will succeed Judge Richard P. Gilbert, who plans to retire from the Special Appeals bench Nov. 1."I have every confidence you will do much to carry on the tradition of the good service and that the interest of the people and of our judiciary will be more than well served by this designation," Governor Schaefer wrote to Judge Wilner.

A trucking company found to have operated outside the law for nearly two decades apparently has cleared its White Marsh headquarters of big rigs -- a move that could end a lengthy legal battle with its residential neighbors.Residents of the small community of Nottingham, who for years complained that Umerley Trucking Co. generated noise, dust and traffic problems, say the trucks appear to have left the Philadelphia Road property, said Marie Simoes, Nottingham Improvement Association president.

Prince George's Circuit Judge James P. Salmon was appointed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals yesterday by Gov. William Donald Schaefer.Judge Salmon, 54, who had been on the Circuit Court since 1988, fills the vacancy on Maryland's second-highest court created by the retirement earlier this month of Judge John J. Garrity.The new appellate judge, who lives in University Park, was formerly an associate and partner in the Upper Marlboro law firm of Sasscer, Clagett, Channing and Bucher.