Maryland Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Maryland, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Can Maryland refuse to award state contracts to a company found in contempt of court for violating federal labor law?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's statute barring state contracts to companies found in contempt of court for violating the National Labor Relations Act was unconsti…
Can a Maryland town charge a utility company a franchise fee or pole-rental fee if the utility already has a statewide franchise from the State?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Potomac Edison held a statewide franchise under Article 23, section 340 to use public streets for its electric lines, that only the State (not…
Could Maryland's new commercial-insurance backstop pool cover nurse-midwives for malpractice even though the law setting it up said it didn't apply to medical malpractice insurance?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's newly created Commercial Casualty Underwriting Association could issue malpractice insurance specifically to nurse-midwives despite…
Could Maryland chiropractors legally order blood tests and urinalysis, or was that considered practicing medicine without a license?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's chiropractic scope-of-practice statute permitted chiropractors to use blood tests and urinalysis to help diagnose whether a patient…
Can the public find out how a Maryland social services agency handled a specific child abuse case, especially after a child has died?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that records and reports concerning a specific child abuse case are generally confidential under Article 88A, section 6(b) and federal law, but tha…
Did Maryland political campaign treasurers in the 1980s have to record every small contribution raised through a fundraiser raffle or gaming wheel, not just the big checks?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's Fair Election Practices Act required campaign treasurers to record every contribution regardless of size, including money raised th…
Could Maryland send unpaid bills owed to a county health department to the state's central debt collection agency, or were those local debts off limits to a state collector?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that local health departments were units of the State for debt collection purposes because the State set their health policy, controlled their fina…
Could a Maryland state agency ask every job applicant whether they had ever been fined, placed on probation, or sent to jail, even for jobs where that history wouldn't matter?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland state agencies could ask job applicants about criminal convictions and factor them into hiring decisions, but a blanket question aski…
Can a hospital get a copy of the recording of a patient's involuntary commitment hearing in Maryland?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that a tape recording of an involuntary mental health admission hearing could be disclosed only to the patient or the patient's authorized represen…
Can a Maryland doctor report a patient's medical condition, like seizures or poor vision, to the Motor Vehicle Administration if it might affect their ability to drive safely?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland law generally authorizes, but does not require, physicians to report disorders involving lapses of consciousness or loss of visual ac…
In Maryland, how does a losing candidate or a voter actually get an election recount after a primary or general election?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General summarized Maryland's two recount pathways: a defeated primary candidate must seek a recount under the detailed Subtitle 13 procedure within days of the elec…
Can a state legally impose a one-time tax on every licensed attorney to fund a mandatory legal malpractice insurance program?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General approved Senate Bill 753 for constitutionality, concluding that a one-time $150 tax on every Maryland attorney to fund the initial surplus of a new mandatory…
If a Maryland official holds a testimonial dinner in their honor, do the ticket proceeds count as regulated campaign contributions or as a personal gift?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that funds given to an official at a testimonial dinner are regulated political contributions under the Fair Election Practices Act, and therefore …
Are 911 emergency call recordings public records that anyone can request in Maryland?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that tape recordings of calls to Maryland's 911 emergency system were public records generally subject to disclosure under the Public Information A…
Can a Maryland town legally install speed bumps on its own streets, and could it get sued if someone is hurt by one?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that a Maryland municipality has no authority to install speed bumps on State highways within its borders, but may install speed bumps on its own m…
If a Maryland board member attends every board meeting but skips the required public hearings, does that count against them under a 60 percent attendance removal rule?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the regional public hearings the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Commission had to hold before adopting program criteria were not "meetings of th…
Could Maryland pharmacists legally fill a prescription written by a nurse practitioner instead of a doctor?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that pharmacists were not prohibited from filling prescriptions properly issued by nurse practitioners, even though the Pharmacy Act's definition o…
Could Ocean City, Maryland charge new construction an impact fee to pay for beach restoration, and would it be unconstitutional to charge only new development rather than existing property owners?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Ocean City had statutory authority under Article 23A, §2(b)(33)(ii) to impose impact fees on new development to help fund its share of a state…
Could a Maryland charter county hire a private company to run its jail and hold custody of inmates, instead of using its own sheriff or county employees?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Talbot County, a charter county, had authority under the Express Powers Act to pass an ordinance vesting jail custody in a warden and contract…
Could a Maryland public agency avoid paying prevailing union wages on a big construction project just by hiring a construction manager to split it into many contracts, each under $500,000?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's Prevailing Wage Law's exclusion for 'contracts of less than $500,000' does not apply to a contract that is one stage of a single pu…
When Maryland got a $36 million share of Exxon's oil overcharge refund in 1986, what could the state legally spend that money on?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's roughly $36 million share of the Exxon oil overcharge refund could be spent only on one or more of five federally designated energy…
If Maryland's insurance guaranty fund ran out of money to pay claims against a failed insurance company, was the state on the hook to cover the shortfall?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the State of Maryland bore no financial liability for claims against the Maryland Insurance Guaranty Association, since the statute funded MIG…
Did Maryland's old MSSIC savings and loan insurer have legal authority to insure each separate account instead of each depositor, and can the legislature undo that after the 1980s Maryland savings and loan crisis?
In this 1986 opinion, issued during Maryland's savings and loan crisis, the Attorney General concluded that MSSIC exceeded its statutory authority in 1976 when it switched from insuring each depositor…
Could Maryland's medical licensing board require physician's assistants to register or be licensed through the board, or could it only regulate what duties doctors delegated to them?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's Board of Medical Examiners had authority under the delegation statute to regulate which duties a physician could delegate to a phys…
If two-thirds of the states petition for a constitutional convention to propose a balanced budget amendment, can that convention legally be limited to only that one amendment?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the validity of Maryland's petition limited to a single balanced budget amendment was questionable, and that even if valid, neither the conven…
Could Maryland move money out of the Transportation Trust Fund to bail out savings and loan depositors without the legislature passing a new law first?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Governor could transfer certain unanticipated Transportation Trust Fund money to the state's Deposit Insurance Fund Corporation using the …
Does a company that leases cars with a purchase option, or a broker who arranges vehicle leases, need a Maryland motor vehicle dealer or salesman license?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that a vehicle lessor must obtain a Motor Vehicle Administration dealer's license only if the lessor's leases are legally "intended as security" (t…
Is it illegal in Maryland to use glue traps to kill rats and mice under the state's animal cruelty law?
In this 1986 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that using commercially sold glueboards to kill rats and mice does not necessarily violate Maryland's Cruelty to Animals Law, because the statute o…
After the Supreme Court's 1983 abortion trilogy, which of Maryland's abortion laws on parental notice, hospitalization, and recordkeeping were still constitutional?
In this 1985 opinion, applying the Supreme Court's 1983 abortion decisions in Akron, Ashcroft, and Simopoulos, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Maryland's parental notification statute and…
Should Maryland's driver's license penalty points be dated to when a traffic violation happened, or to when the driver was actually convicted?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Motor Vehicle Administration's long-standing practice of dating a driver's license points to the date of the underlying violation was inco…
If a Maryland legislator switches political parties and then resigns, which party's central committee picks their replacement?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that under Article III, §13(a) of the Maryland Constitution, the central committee entitled to submit a successor's name to the Governor when a mem…
Was it constitutional for Maryland to exempt only trucks already titled and registered in the state from its new, stricter truck weight limits?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that §24-109(a) of the Transportation Article, which exempted vehicles titled and registered in Maryland before December 31, 1983 from the state's …
Can a Maryland licensing board refuse to let someone take a professional licensing exam just because they live out of state?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators lacked the statutory authority to refuse an application to sit for its licensing examina…
After Maryland cracked down on lenders disguising abusive home-secured loans as "commercial" loans, which lenders had to give borrowers a written reason when they turned down a credit application?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that a borrower must be given a genuine, meaningful right to postpone a balloon payment under the new Chapter 115 commercial loan protections, and …
Who is legally allowed to witness someone signing a living will in Maryland, and can the lawyer handling their estate be one of the witnesses?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's new living will law required at least two witnesses who personally knew the person signing the declaration, and that anyone who kne…
Did the money collected by Maryland's new Chesapeake Bay Trust have to be deposited into the State Treasury like other state funds?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the funds of the newly created Chesapeake Bay Trust were "moneys of the State" under Article VI, §3 of the Maryland Constitution, because the …
Could Montgomery County require lawn care companies to disclose pesticide risks to customers, or did federal law preempt that kind of local pesticide ordinance?
In this 1985 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Montgomery County's proposed ordinance requiring lawn care businesses to disclose pesticide risks to customers was preempted by the f…
When Maryland bailed out its savings and loan associations after the 1985 crisis, was the emergency legislation authorizing state control and bond funding constitutional?
In this 1985 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that the emergency legislation enacted during the May 1985 Special Session to respond to the savings and loan crisis, including state bond…
Can a private letter of wishes attached to a will legally stop a library from publishing papers the will itself left with no restrictions?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that a private memorandum H.L. Mencken left to his executors, and a receipt the Enoch Pratt Free Library signed when it received his diaries, had n…
After the 1985 Garcia and Loudermill Supreme Court decisions, did Maryland have to change its state employee overtime and firing rules?
In this 1985 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that neither Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority nor Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill required Maryland to chan…
Can Maryland's Comptroller waive late-filing penalties for a taxpayer just because they have a good track record of filing on time, and can that waiver be done automatically by computer?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Comptroller could lawfully treat a taxpayer's consistent record of timely filing as "cause" or "good cause" to waive penalty and interest …
Under Maryland's old Fair Election Practices Act, did contribution limits apply to money given to a PAC instead of directly to a candidate?
In this 1985 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that the Fair Election Practices Act's $2,500 aggregate contribution limit applied to money given to a political committee even though it …
Did the Supreme Court's ruling striking down Connecticut's Sabbath-observance law also make Maryland's retail day-of-rest laws unconstitutional?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Maryland's county-specific statutes letting retail and wholesale employees choose Sunday or their Sabbath as a day of rest were significantly …
Which of Maryland's 1985 restrictions on dentist advertising, like bans on guarantees, painless-treatment claims, and displaying dental appliances, actually held up under the First Amendment?
In this 1985 opinion, applying Supreme Court commercial-speech cases from Virginia Pharmacy through Zauderer, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that dental advertising rules banning deceptive cl…
If Maryland renumbers its state employee pay grades, does that change who has to file a financial disclosure statement under the Public Ethics Law?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Department of Personnel's renumbering of the Standard Salary Schedule (old Grade 18 became new Grade 16) was a purely technical relabeling…
Could Maryland's Insurance Guaranty Association hire its own private lawyers, or did it have to use the Attorney General's office like a state agency?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that although the question was not free from doubt, the Maryland Insurance Guaranty Association (MIGA) was not a "unit of the State government" for…
Can Maryland raise the salary of a sitting liquor board official in the middle of their term by moving them to a newly created position?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that Article III, §35 of the Maryland Constitution barred the Frederick County liquor license commissioner and inspector from receiving increased p…
When does a Maryland governor have to return a vetoed bill to the legislature after a special session?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Governor was not required to return bills vetoed during a special session to the House of origin during that same special session, but had…
Can a small Maryland town condemn land outside its own borders to build a sewage treatment facility?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the Town of Manchester had express statutory authority under §9-705(5) of the Health-Environmental Article to condemn land outside its municip…
Can a Maryland Property Tax Assessment Appeal Board raise your property's assessed value on its own, without anyone asking it to?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that a Property Tax Assessment Appeal Board (PTAAB) has the statutory power to increase a property tax assessment above what the supervisor of asse…
Could deaf people serve on Maryland juries in the 1980s, and were they entitled to a sign language interpreter?
In this 1985 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Maryland's requirement that jurors comprehend spoken English was not, in practice, being used to disqualify deaf jurors who used inte…
Does it matter under Maryland law whether a state tax on savings and loan associations is meant to regulate them or just to raise revenue?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that the distinction between a regulatory tax and a revenue-raising tax mattered only for judging the validity of a local government's tax, not a t…
Can a for-profit company lease a building to nonprofit groups to run bingo games and take a big cut of the proceeds as rent?
In this 1985 opinion, the Attorney General concluded that an arrangement in which a for-profit corporation leased a building to nonprofit organizations to run bingo games, supplied the equipment, and …
Could Maryland require Montgomery County school board members to live in specific residence districts through a state law?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General advised that a bill requiring five Montgomery County school board members to reside in specific districts was constitutional, because the bill estab…
Are Maryland Juvenile Services Administration records about a child kept confidential the same way juvenile court records are?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Juvenile Services Administration records identifying a child, including intake, counselor, and institutional records, are protected a…
Could Maryland public school students hold a voluntary Bible study or prayer group during free time in the 1980s?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Baltimore County schools could permit students to form voluntary prayer or Bible study groups during genuinely free, unstructured tim…
Could a Maryland county spend its share of the farmland transfer tax on staff salaries, not just on buying preservation easements?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Queen Anne's County could use its one-third share of the agricultural transfer tax not only to match state funds for buying farmland …
Could Maryland constitutionally ban sex-based pricing in insurance, even for policies already in effect?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that legislation banning sex-based pricing in insurance would be constitutionally defensible under the Contract Clause, because Maryland's…
Did a critical newspaper ad about a congressman have to include Maryland's campaign disclosure 'authority line' if it never mentioned the election?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General concluded that Maryland's campaign-literature 'authority line' disclosure requirement did not apply to an independently published newspaper ad criti…
Could Maryland's Mass Transit Administration leave depreciation and interest out of 'operating costs' when calculating its required 50% fare box recovery ratio?
In this 1984 opinion, the Maryland Attorney General agreed that the Mass Transit Administration could exclude capital costs like depreciation and interest from 'operating costs' when calculating the s…
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Attorney general opinions in Maryland are written by the Maryland Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.