Alternatives Unlimited, Inc. v. New Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners

CHARLES E. MOYLAN, Jr., Judge, retired, specially assigned.

The leitmotif that runs through this opinion was first sounded by the Court of Appeals in 1943 in the landmark case of Gontrum v. City of Baltimore, 182 Md. 370, 35 A.2d 128. Gontrum established that many of the standard rules governing the relationship between two contracting parties do not apply when one of those parties, instead of being a private person or private corporation, is a municipality or other governmental entity. The rationale for the difference is very similar to the rationale behind sovereign immunity. The literal…