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Maryland Casualty Co. v. Lorkovic6/1/1994
Maryland Casualty's policy of reimbursing Lorkovic for expenses incurred during business travel and its history of reimbursing him specifically for mileage traveled from his home to the airport and return home is a sufficient "custom of the employer" to infer that Maryland Casualty agreed to provide transportation for Lorkovic at the time of his accident. See Watson, 200 Md. at 470; Ryan, 38 Md. App. at 332. This conclusion is also supported by the distinction drawn by Maryland Casualty between business travel and travel merely between home and office: Maryland Casualty did not pay for traveling expenses incurred between Lorkovic's home and the office. During business travel, therefore, Maryland Casualty clearly considered Lorkovic to be on the job and conducting Maryland Casualty business.
2
Having determined that the free transportation exception is applicable and that summary judgment was appropriate for that determination, we are faced with the question of whether we can affirm summary judgment based on that exception when the trial court's opinion relied on the own-conveyance exception announced in Alitalia, 91 Md. App. at 205, aff'd, 329 Md. at 41.
As a general rule, "'appellate courts will not ordinarily undertake to sustain the judgment by ruling on another ground, not ruled upon by the trial court, if the alternative ground is one as to which the trial court had a discretion to deny summary judgment.'" Three Garden Village LTD Partnership v. United States Fidelity and Guar. Corp., 318 Md. 98, 107-08, 567 A.2d 85 (1989) (quoting Geisz v. Greater Baltimore Medical Ctr., 313 Md. 301, 314 n.5, 545 A.2d 658 (1988); see also Gross, 332 Md. at 254 n.3; Federated Dep't Stores, Inc. v. Thatch Le, 324 Md. 71, 79, 595 A.2d 1067 (1991); Heat and Power Corp. v. Air Prods. & Chems. Inc., 320 Md. 584, 591-92, 578 A.2d 1202 (1990). This principle is consonant with the rule that a trial judge has discretion to deny a motion for summary judgment so that a more complete factual record can be developed. See A.J. Decoster Co. v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 333 Md. 245, 262-63, 634 A.2d 1330 (1994); Foy v. Prudential Ins. Co., 316 Md. 418, 424, 559 A.2d 371 (1989); Metropolitan Mortgage Fund, Inc. v. Basiliko, 288 Md. 25, 29, 415 A.2d 582 (1980). The federal appellate courts often affirm a trial court's grant of summary judgment on grounds not relied upon by the lower court. E.g., Weiser v. United States, 959 F.2d 146, 147 (9th Cir. 1992); Lussier v. Louisville Ladder Co., 938 F.2d 299, 301 n.2 (1st Cir. 1991); Shah v. General Elec. Co., 816 F.2d 264, 270 (6th Cir. 1987); Cannon v. University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical Sch., 710 F.2d 351, 363 (7th Cir. 1983); see also 10 C. WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2716 at 658 (1983). We have observed that judicial interpretations of the federal rule are persuasive because the Maryland Summary Judgment Rule is derived from the federal rule. Seaboard, 91 Md. App. at 243-44 n.2; see also Metropolitan Mortgage Fund, 288 Md. at 27.
In the case sub judice, we have held that there were no disputes as to material facts and that Lorkovic was entitled to summary judgment as coming within the free transportation exception. Thus, the trial judge would have had no discretion in denying the
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