American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp. v. Mark Engineering Co.

• Citation: 187 A.2d 864,230 Md. 584
• Decision Date: 07 February 1963
• Docket Number: No. 171,171
• Parties: AMERICAN RADIATOR AND STANDARD SANITARY CORPORATION v. MARK ENGINEERING COMPANY.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

Page 584

230 Md. 584

187 A.2d 864

AMERICAN RADIATOR AND STANDARD SANITARY CORPORATION v. MARK ENGINEERING COMPANY.

No. 171.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 7, 1963.

Alva P. Weaver, III, and Robert E. Coughlan, Jr., Baltimore (Lord, Whip, Coughlan & Green, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Paul F. Due, Baltimore (Richard C. Whiteford, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, HAMMOND, HORNEY and SYBERT, JJ.

HAMMOND, Judge.

In 1948, in Standard Wholesale Phosphate and Acid Works, Inc. v. Rukert Terminal Corporation, 193 Md. 20, 65 A.2d 304, this Court construed the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act and, finding no controlling federal decisions on the point, held that the act made the obligation of a conforming employer to pay compensation to an injured employee exclusive and in place of all other liability to the employee or anyone else otherwise entitled to recover damages from the employer, at law or in admiralty, on account of the injury or death of the employee. From this the Court concluded that, in the absence of an express contractual agreement to assume an obligation to indemnify, as distinguished from an implied or quasi-contractual obligation, the act foreclosed all right to contribution or indemnity from the employer.

A similar conclusion had been reached by the Court in Baltimore Transit Co. v. State, Use of Schriefer, 183 Md. 674, 39 A.2d 858, 156 A.L.R. 460, in deciding that an employer who had conformed to the Workmen's Compensation Act could not be held liable for contribution in part or in full, as a joint tortfeasor, to one liable in tort to the injured employee. The Supreme Court reached the same result on this point under the Longshoremen's Act in Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling and Refitting Corp., 342 U.S. 282, 72 S.Ct. 277, 96 L.Ed. 318.

In 1956, the Supreme Court in a five to four decision, in Ryan Stevedoring Co. v. Pan-Atlantic S. S. Corp., 350 U.S. 124, 76 S.Ct. 232, 100 L.Ed. 133, held, in a suit by an employee of a stevedoring contractor to recover from a ship owner damages for injury resulting from improper stowage of cargo aboard the ship, that the ship owner could maintain a third party complaint against the contractor on an implied obligation to indemnify arising from its contractual undertaking to the ship owner to stow the cargo properly and safely. The majority of the Court found the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act not to bar recovery from the employer on an implied agreement to indemnify any more than it would on an express agreement. The Supreme Court's construction of the Act was diametrically contrary to that of this Court in Rukert. Ryan has been followed by three other cases in the Supreme Court in which the Court held unanimously that the Act permitted recovery against the employer on its implied agreement to indemnify. ¹

In the case before us, the appellant, American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Corporation, employed Mark Engineering Company by written contract to repair its elevated water tank at its Baltimore plant. Mark covenanted that all workmanship would be of good quality and all work free from unnecessary hazards. Melvin Lambert, a painter employed by a subcontractor of Mark, was injured while at work on the water tank when a repaired rod, claimed to have been improperly welded by Mark, gave way, and he fell. Lambert was paid compensation by the insurance carrier of the subcontractor, his actual employer (it is agreed that Mark was his statutory employer, State, Use of Hubert v. Benjamin F. Bennett Building Co., 154 Md. 159, 140 A. 52). Lambert and the insurance carrier sued American, claiming his damages had been caused by its failure to provide him a safe place to work. American filed a third party action against Mark, alleging that the latter had breached its contract by failing to perform its work in a careful and workmanlike manner and, as a result, was obligated to indemnify American for any liability it had as a result of the failure of the work. Judge Prendergast sustained a demurrer filed by Mark to the third party complaint without leave to amend.

American urges us to apply the reasoning and conclusions of Ryan to the interpretation of the Maryland Workmen's Compensation law because that law provides, in language indistinguishable in substance from that of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, that a conforming employer who pays compensation shall have no other and further liability on account of the accidental injury of his employee. It is true that the Supreme Court's interpretation of the meaning and effect of the federal act is binding on this Court, as was recognized in Rukert at page 24 of 193 Md., at page 305 of 65 A.2d. ('In construing that act, we are bound by authoritative construction placed upon it by the federal courts.') It is equally true that the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, are bound by the interpretation given by this Court to a Maryland statute, absent a federal constitutional question. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188.

If it be assumed, as appellant suggests would be the case, that the Supreme Court, had it to do, would on the same facts construe the Maryland Workmen's Compensation Act just as it construed the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, its construction would be entitled to respectful consideration by this Court but need not be binding on it.

The reasoning of the majority in Ryan was (a) that the stevedore's contract to stow the cargo properly and safely amounted to a warranty of workmanlike service comparable to a manufacturer's warranty of the soundness of its product; (b) that the Act admittedly did not bar an employer from expressly assuming an obligation to indemnify; and (c) that the...