Consent Has No Meaning In Baltimore’s Rent Court
By: Indigo Null
On May 10, 2023, BRU Rent Court Watchers sat in on the 9AM and 10:45AM rent court dockets, presided over by Judge Theresa C. Morse. Judge Morse was appointed as a judge by former Governor Larry Hogan in March of 2022. She has a routine way of beginning her failure to pay rent dockets: she gives a short introduction where she explains where both parties are supposed to stand, then tells tenants she will ask them one question: Whether or not they owe the amount listed on the complaint. She then says if they do agree they owe it, she will enter a consent judgment.
In Maryland failure to pay rent court, a “consent judgment” is an agreement where the parties agree to certain terms and to a judgment, but it also means that a defendant tenant gives up their right of appeal - for example, a tenant may agree to a consent judgment where they pay a certain amount by a certain date, and in return the landlord delays filing for their eviction. This is troubling because the word “consent” is misleading here – Thus far, tenant advocates present at Judge Morse’s dockets have not witnessed her explain what a consent judgment is or explain that it foregoes their right to an appeal, and unless a tenant has representation, they are unlikely to know that they could end up with a judgment they can’t appeal if they don’t raise any defense.
For each hearing, Judge Morse seems to have a set way she proceeds that tends to take less than two minutes: She calls the case and asks all parties to state their name for the record, then asks the landlord or agent if the amount they listed is still owed. If they affirm it is, Judge Morse asks the tenant if they are agreeing they owe that amount or contesting it. If a tenant says they don’t agree, she says they will have to wait until the end of the docket for a hearing. If the tenant does not contest the amount, she enters a consent judgment without explaining what that is. Sometimes she goes so fast tenants don’t get to speak other than saying their names - she will often go ahead with a consent judgment after just a head nod. Moreover, BRU Rent Court Watchers have not seen Judge Morse ask any tenants if they have any defenses or explain that tenants can mention things like health and safety code issues or problems with rent ledgers. Other Judges like Judge Hernandez or Judge Scuti mention these defenses in their docket introductions and ask about them in specific cases.
BRU Court Watchers sitting outside of Morse’s failure to pay rent dockets have asked tenants coming out if they understood what a consent judgment is or that they could have mentioned concerns about their poor conditions in their apartments or issues with accuracy in their landlord’s records of what they owe. Almost invariably they say no, and are shocked and upset when they find out that it is an unappealable judgment and that they could have raised defenses. A few weeks ago, advocates saw a case where a man whose roof had collapsed was under the impression that he couldn’t mention it as a defense in his case because it was unrelated to the amount of money his landlord claimed he owed.
Judge Morse has vastly more consent judgments happen in her dockets than any other judge - while BRU advocates may see a maximum of 1 or 2 in other dockets of a similar size, on this day, 14 of the 18 hearings where tenants showed up resulted in consent judgments. Some tenant advocates and legal professionals refer to her dockets as “rocket dockets” because Judge Morse gets through so many cases so fast, often losing any semblance of due process along the way.