Blevins v. Baltimore County

• Decision Date: 11 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 69,69
• Citation: 352 Md. 620,724 A.2d 22
• Parties: Jerry BLEVINS v. BALTIMORE COUNTY, Maryland. Mary E. Wills v. Baltimore County, Maryland.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

724 A.2d 22

352 Md. 620

Jerry BLEVINS v. BALTIMORE COUNTY, Maryland.

Mary E. Wills v. Baltimore County, Maryland.

No. 69, Sept. Term, 1998.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

February 11, 1999.

Jeff Horowitz (Michael Marshall, Schlachman, Belsky & Weiner, on brief), Baltimore; Hal C.B. Clagett, III, Upper Marlboro (Patricia G. Adams, Serio, Tansey & Adams, Riverdale), all on brief, for petitioners.

Michael G. Comeau, Assistant County Attorney (Virginia W. Barnhart, County Attorney, on brief), Towson, for respondent.

P. Matthew Darby, Albertini & Darby, L.L.P., Baltimore, amicus curiae for Maryland Trial Lawyers Association.

Phillip F. Scheibe, County Attorney, Kim Carne, Asst. County Attorney, Annapolis, for Anne Arundel County.

Otho M. Thompson, City Solicitor, Stanley C. Rogosin, Asst. City Solicitor, Baltimore, for Baltimore City.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, RAKER, WILNER and CATHELL, JJ.

WILNER, Judge.

These two cases, which we consolidated for argument, involve the construction of Maryland Code, § 9-610(a) of the Labor and Employment Article, which is part of the Workers' Compensation Law. That section provides, in relevant part, that if a law, regulation, or policy provides "a benefit to a covered employee of a governmental unit... that is subject to this title ... payment of the benefit by the employer satisfies, to the extent of the payment, the liability of the employer ... for payment of benefits under the title." If the alternative benefit equals or exceeds the workers' compensation benefit otherwise payable, the set-off is complete, and the employer's obligation to pay the workers' compensation benefit is fully discharged. If the workers' compensation benefit exceeds the alternative benefit, the employer must pay the difference, as determined by the Workers' Compensation Commission.

In Blevins, the issue is whether the set-off applies to workers' compensation benefits awarded after a county employee retired and began receiving disability retirement benefits pursuant to the county's employee retirement plan but for a period preceding the effective date of the employee's retirement. In Wills, the substantive issue is whether the set-off applies with respect to ordinary retirement benefits, as opposed to disability retirement benefits, paid to a county employee following her retirement. Wills presents a procedural issue as well. In each case, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that the set-off applied. Wills v. Baltimore County, 120 Md.App. 281, 707 A.2d 108 (1998). We disagree and shall reverse.

Blevins

Jerry Blevins was a colonel in the Baltimore County Police Department. On January 21, 1994, he suffered a work-related accidental injury when he fell on a patch of ice on the police headquarters parking lot. Though sustaining injuries to his neck, back, and shoulder, he continued to work full time in his administrative position and encountered no wage loss. At some point, he applied for accidental disability retirement benefits from the county employees' retirement system. His application was approved, and, effective November 16, 1995, he retired and began receiving the disability retirement benefits.

Subsequent to his retirement, Colonel Blevins filed for workers' compensation benefits. In an order entered on February 23, 1996, the Workers' Compensation Commission declined to award any benefits for temporary total disability, on the ground that there was "[n]o compensable lost time," but it did award permanent partial disability benefits, based on a 20% industrial loss of use of the body by reason of the neck and back injuries, in the amount of $170 per week. The Commission's order specified that the weekly benefit be paid for the period of January 22, 1994 through November 16, 1995 and provided that "thereafter any permanent partial disability due and payable is offset by claimant's weekly pension benefits of $1,038.25."

The county sought judicial review of the Commission's order, contending that the entire award was offset by the pension benefits. Because it had already paid, in a lump sum, the 91 weeks of benefits ordered by the Commission, the county sought a credit for that amount against the disability retirement benefits payable in the future.¹ The Circuit Court for Baltimore County found merit in the county's position and granted its motion for summary judgment, finding that, if the award were allowed, Blevins "will collect twice." Relying on Frank v. Baltimore County, 284 Md. 655, 399 A.2d 250 (1979), which it found controlling, the Court of Special Appeals affirmed.

Frank also involved a Baltimore County police officer who, in 1975, suffered an accidental injury in the line of duty. Like Col. Blevins, he continued to receive his full salary from the county, although, unlike Blevins, Lt. Frank did lose some time from work due to his injury. On February 6, 1976, he retired with a work-related disability and began receiving disability retirement benefits in the amount of $841/month. Upon his retirement, Lt. Frank applied for workers' compensation benefits, seeking payment for a permanent partial disability. In January, 1977, the Commission found that he had sustained a 20% industrial loss of use of his body, 15% of the disability being attributable to the 1975 accident, and it awarded him benefits in the amount of $54/week, commencing from the date of his retirement. It found as well, however, that those benefits were fully offset by the higher retirement benefits Lt. Frank was receiving, a determination sustained, on judicial review, by the circuit court.

Noting that the statute, then codified as Maryland Code, Article 101, § 33, afforded a credit only for a benefit "furnished" or "provided" by the employer, Frank argued on appeal that, because the pension plan at issue was funded through contributions made by both him and the employer, the benefits paid to him under that plan were not benefits furnished or provided by the employer "until after the employee's contributions are first returned to him." His contention was that, during the 48-week period that he otherwise would have received workers' compensation benefits, he was receiving from the pension plan only a return of his own contributions and therefore "could not be said to be receiving payments from his employer which were `equal to or better than' the workmen's compensation award established for this same time period." Frank, supra, 284 Md. at 660, 399 A.2d at 253-54. That argument was based on § 72(d) of the Internal Revenue Code, which provided that, if a retiree receives benefits under a pension plan funded by both employee and employer contributions, the amounts received by the employee are not taxable until the employee has received the total amount of his or her contributions to the plan.

We rejected Frank's argument. We observed initially that the unmistakable purpose of Article 101, § 33 was "to provide only a single recovery for a single injury for government employees covered by both a pension plan and workmen's compensation." Id. at 659, 399 A.2d at 253. The statute, we held, did not mandate that the pension benefit be entirely supplied by the employer in order to qualify as a set-off, and we pointed out that the addition of such a requirement "would frustrate the legislature's intention to minimize the burden on the public treasury that would result from providing duplicate benefits to public employees." Id. at 661, 399 A.2d at 254 (emphasis added). We concluded, therefore, that the employer was entitled to be discharged from its compensation obligation "whenever the total amount of any employee benefit, whether furnished entirely or partially by employer funds, is equal to or better than the workmen's compensation award." Id.

We then noted a "second flaw" in Frank's argument—the assumption that the benefits of the two plans "are only to be compared for the period in which the two will be simultaneously due." Id. That argument, we said, also would require an addition to the statutory language, as there was no provision in the statute that placed a time limitation on the contrast that was to be made. The Internal Revenue Code provision, we held, was inserted by Congress "solely for administrative reasons and not because that legislative body believed employee contributions were actually returned first." Id. at 662, 399 A.2d at 255. A more sensible interpretation of the pension was that each monthly payment represented a prorated return of the employee's contributions, augmented by employer-generated funds.

The Court of Special Appeals seized on the part of our discussion in Frank noting the absence of a time limitation and directing that the total amounts of the two benefits were to be compared, to conclude that "[t]he officer's date of retirement was not central to Frank "and, indeed, that the date of retirement was "irrelevant to the application of the offset provision." Wills v. Baltimore County, supra, 120 Md.App. at 312, 707 A.2d at 124. From that premise, the court went on to determine that the lack of an overlap in Blevins's benefits also was irrelevant. It held that, because the Commission "awarded Blevins workers' compensation benefits from the date of his injury forward, into the period of retirement during which Blevins receive[d] disability benefits," there was "a substantial period of overlap of benefits." Id. Under Frank, it held, "the entire workers' compensation award should have been compared to the entire disability retirement award, irrespective of time frame." Id.

It is true that, in Frank, the date of retirement was irrelevant, but that was because the workers' compensation benefits did not extend beyond that date. The issue was whether the retirement benefits paid during the first 48 weeks of retirement actually constituted an employee benefit, Frank's argument being that, because those payments represented a return of his own contributions, th...