2026-09-12 · Maryland · Courts

What happened. A Baltimore condominium council and a homeowners association opposed a developer's plan to amend their planned unit development. The developer sued them. They got the suit thrown out as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, and won on appeal. Then they sued the developer and its lawyers for having brought it.

On 13 July 2026 the Supreme Court of Maryland held that that second suit fails. The decision is The Council of Unit Owners of the Millrace Condominium, Inc. v. Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, P.A., No. 58, September Term 2025, opinion by Eaves, J., affirming the dismissal.¹

It is a reported decision of Maryland's highest court, and it settles what a Maryland association gets for winning an anti-SLAPP motion: dismissal, and nothing more.

What the court held

From the court's own summary:

“Litigation expenses, temporary diminution in property value, emotional distress, and an alleged chilling of constitutional rights associated with defending a meritless lawsuit do not differ in kind from the burdens that attend the defense of any civil action. They are not the kind of special injury, such as the arrest of the person or seizure of property, that a claim for malicious use of process requires.”¹

The court also refused to create a carve-out:

“The Court further declined to adopt a per se rule that the victims of a SLAPP inherently satisfy the special-injury element. Maryland's anti-SLAPP statute, CJP § 5-807, creates a procedural mechanism for the early dismissal of qualifying suits, but it neither provides a right to damages nor alters the elements of the common law tort of malicious use of process. The General Assembly has repeatedly considered and rejected proposals to expand the remedies available to defendants in a SLAPP, and any such expansion is a matter for the General Assembly to undertake.”¹

Special injury is one of five elements of malicious use of process in Maryland. The examples the court gives — arrest of the person, seizure of property — are the historical measure, and defending an expensive meritless suit does not meet it.

1. The Council of Unit Owners of the Millrace Condominium, Inc., et al. v. Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, P.A., et al., No. 58, September Term 2025, Supreme Court of Maryland — opinion by Eaves, J., filed 13 July 2026; argued 5 May 2026; Circuit Court for Baltimore City No. 24-C-23-005315; special injury and CJP § 5-807 ↩
2. House Bill 402 (2026), Common Ownership Communities – Oversight, Governing Document Database, and Local Commissions — passed House 99-35, died in Senate Judicial Proceedings without a committee vote ↩