Athas v. Hill, 893

• Decision Date: 12 April 1983
• Docket Number: No. 893,893
• Citation: 458 A.2d 859,54 Md.App. 293
• Parties: Nicholas ATHAS v. Robert Lee HILL et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 293

54 Md.App. 293

458 A.2d 859

Nicholas ATHAS v. Robert Lee HILL et al.

No. 893.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 12, 1983.

Howard J. Schulman, Baltimore, with whom was Peter G. Angelos, Baltimore, on brief, for appellant

Austin W. Brizendine, Jr., Towson, with whom were Moore, Hennegan, Carney & Ryan, Towson, on brief, for appellees.

Argued before MORTON ^* and GARRITY, JJ., and ORTH, CHARLES E., Jr., Specially Assigned Judge.

ORTH, CHARLES E. Jr., Special Judge.

The characters in this long running case are:

Summit Country Club, Inc., the employer;

Jack Pollack, President and Managing Agent of Summit;

Jerome Hurwitz, Vice-president of Summit;

Mitchell Rosenfeld, House Chairman of Summit; ¹

Nicholas Athas, an employee of Summit, the victim;

Robert Lee Hill, an employee of Summit, the assailant.

Athas suffered a disability resulting from an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. The injury was caused by the wilful act of Hill who assaulted Athas, cutting and stabbing him with a knife. See Md.Code (1957, 1979 Repl.Vol.) Art. 101, entitled "Workmen's Compensation," hereinafter referred to as "the Act," § 15 and § 67(6). Athas proceeded against Summit for compensation under the Act. ² He also proceeded at law in Athas presents one question:

                the Circuit Court for Baltimore County against Hill for the assault, and against Pollack, et al. on the ground that they were negligent.   He obtained a judgment against Hill in the amounts of $73,000 for compensatory damages and $5,000 for punitive damages.   A demurrer by Pollack, et al. was sustained without leave to amend.   Athas' appeal from the ruling is now before us. 3
                

"Is a cause of action stated by an employee against a co-employee who undertakes and performs without due care the employer's duty to provide competent and non-violent co-employees?"

The duty on which Athas relied to support his action at law against Pollack, et al. arises by way of a common law qualification to the fellow-servant rule. Under that qualification it is the duty of an employer to use due diligence in the selection of competent and careful employees and in the retention in its service of none but those who are. The duty is recognized in Maryland. Evans v. Morsell, 284 Md. 160, 164-165, 395 A.2d 480 (1978); Norfolk and Western Railroad Co. v. Hoover, 79 Md. 253, 262 29 A. 994 (1894); Hamelin v. Malster, 57 Md. 287, 306 (1881). See Leonard v. Sav-A-Stop The employer is primarily and absolutely obliged to perform the duty properly. Wood v. Abell, 268 Md. 214, 238, 300 A.2d 665 (1973); Jarka Company v. Gancl, 149 Md. 425, 431, 131 A. 754 (1926). The employer may authorize others, be they called manager, superintendent, middleman, foreman, or whatever, to hire and fire employees, but the duty is nondelegable in the sense that the employer cannot thereby relieve himself of or avoid the responsibility for a failure to discharge the duty to the injury of an employee. Security C. & L. Co., 124 Md. at 16, 91 A. 834. In other words, the employer remains liable in respect to the duty for the omissions or neglect of the person to whom he entrusts the duty. Hamelin, 57 Md. at 306-308. See Bartlett-Hayward Co., 120 Md. at 5-6, 87 A. 499; Penn Steel Co., 113 Md. at 484-485, 77 A. 1121. Pollack, et al. further concede, for the purpose of this appeal, that Summit delegated the duty to them as co-employees, that they actively assumed the discharge of the duty and that Athas was injured due to the failure of them individually to discharge it. ⁴ But they urge that they are not Both Athas and Pollack, et al. address the matter in the perspective of the common law. The common law relationship between employer and employee, however, was radically changed by workmen's compensation laws. We believe that, in the circumstances of this case, whether Athas' amended declaration alleges a cause of action can be determined only upon consideration of the provisions of Maryland's workmen's compensation statute.

                Services, 289 Md. 204, 208, 424 A.2d 336 (1981);   Bauman v. Woodfield, 244 Md. 207, 216, 223 A.2d 364 (1966);   McVey v. Gerrald, 172 Md. 595, 602, 192 A. 789 (1937);   Security C. & L. Co. v. Bowers, 124 Md. 11, 16, 91 A. 834 (1914);   Bartlett-Hayward Co. v. State, 120 Md. 1, 5, 87 A. 499 (1913);   Penn.  Steel Co. v. Nace, 113 Md. 460, 482, 77 A. 1121 (1910).   Pollack, et al. concede, for the purpose of this appeal, that Summit owed the duty to Athas
                liable [458 A.2d 862] to Athas because the duty to provide competent, peaceful and law-abiding co-employees which they breached ran only from Summit to Athas and not from them to Athas.   They argue that "[a]n employee does not have a duty to provide fellow employees with competent, peaceful and law-abiding co-workers."   They claim that "[a]n employee is not liable to a co-employee for the former employee's failure to discharge his duty to their employer."   They conclude that "[a]n employee injured by a co-employee's breach of his contract with the employer is not entitled to recover for any such breach."   On the other hand, Athas declares that the duty is not only owed to him by Summit, but also by Pollack, et al., so that Pollack, et al. as well as Summit are liable to him for the negligent failure to perform it
                

The Act embodies a comprehensive scheme to withdraw all phases of extra-hazardous employments from private controversy and to provide sure and certain relief for injured workmen, their families and dependents regardless of questions of fault. Continental Cas. Co. v. Mirabile, 52 Md.App. 387, 395, 449 A.2d 1176, cert. denied, --- Md. ---, [22 November] (1982). It is designed inter alia to preclude tort actions against an employer. ⁵ Shining bright and clear from The cases tracing the history of the Act and applying its provisions recognize as the policy of the State that the liability of the employer extends no further when compensation is awarded, and show that it existed from the enactment of the statute to the present time, unaffected by various amendments to the Act. In Hagerstown v. Schreiner, 135 Md. 650, 653, 109 A. 464 (1920) the Court said "As against an employer who has provided the insurance and who has not 'from deliberate intention produced such injury or death' the remedy by compensation under the act is exclusive."

                the intent of the General Assembly as gleaned from the Preamble to the Act, from the provisions of the Act, and from the cases of the Court of Appeals and this Court interpreting and applying those provisions is the proposition that upon claim and award or payment of compensation by an employer to an employee suffering an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, no further liability shall inure to the employer.   The Preamble to Acts 1914 announces that the relief to injured workmen set out in the Act shall be "to the exclusion of every other remedy, except as otherwise provided in this Act."   Section 15 makes exclusive the liability of an employer to pay compensation.   See Kramer v. Globe Brewing Co., 175 Md. 461, 470, 2 A.2d 634 (1938).   Section 36, in establishing a schedule for the payment of compensation, declares that "except in this article otherwise provided, such payment shall be in lieu of any and all rights of action whatsoever against any person whomsoever."   The provisos in the Act are clearly delineated, and none permit a law action against an employer if relief has been obtained by way of the payment of compensation.   So under § 44 the privilege given an employee whose injury results from the deliberate intention of his employer to have a cause of action against the employer as if the Act had not been passed, is lost if the employee proceeds by way of compensation.   Section 58 authorizes proceedings at law against third parties where the injury for which compensation is payable was caused under circumstances creating a legal liability in "... some person other than the employer."
                

Hutzell v. Boyer, 252 Md. 227, 232, 249 A.2d 449 (1969), states flatly that the Act "excludes an action in tort by an employee against his employer...." Cases in the intervening years are to like effect. For example, State v. Francis, 151 Md. 147, 149, 134 A. 26 (1926) states that if the injured employee accepts "compensation under the act, such payment must be held as declared by section 36, article 101, to be 'in lieu of any and all rights of action whatsoever against any person whomsoever.' " It was said in Kramer v. Globe Brewing Co., supra, 175 Md. at 470, 2 A.2d 634: "Under the provisions of the Act ... the right to sue the employer at common law is only inherent in the employee in cases in which the employer has failed to comply with it; in which latter case the employee ... has the option of either claiming compensation under the Act, or maintaining an action at common law for damages on account of the injury." Baltimore Transit Co. v. State, 183 Md. 674, 677, 39 A.2d 858 (1944) put it this way: "There is no doubt that the Workmen's Compensation Act substituted for the common law liability of an employer for negligence, subject to the corresponding common law defenses, an absolute, but limited, liability regardless of fault, and made that liability exclusive, in the case of a conforming employer." Transit Co. v. Harroll, 217 Md. 169, 176, 141 A.2d 912 (1958), quoting Barrett v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 152 Md. 253, 259, 136 A. 542 (1927), observed that when an injured employee "claimed and received compensation from the employer and the insurer, she could thereafter proceed only against the intervening tort-feasor, whose act caused the death of her husband in compliance with the terms of the statute." Expressed another way, an injured employee "is entitled to only one recovery...." Gray v. State Roads Comm'n, 253 Md. 421, 425, 252 A.2d 810 (1969).

In the face of the dictates of the Act and the cases applying them, Athas, having...