Calvo v. Montgomery Cnty.
| Decision Date | 21 June 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 1036,1036 |
| Parties | RINA CALVO v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND |
| Court | Court of Special Appeals of Maryland |
UNREPORTED
Opinion by Wright, J.
*This is an unreported opinion, and it may not be cited in any paper, brief, motion, or other document filed in this Court or any other Maryland Court as either precedent within the rule of stare decisis or as persuasive authority. Md. Rule 1-104.
This appeal arises out of a worker's compensation action. Appellant, Rina Calvo, is employed as a bus driver by appellee, Montgomery County, Maryland ("the County"). Calvo brought a workers' compensation claim for injuries sustained in a car accident on May 16, 2015, while Calvo was on her way to an employee customer service training that took place on a time and day different from her normal work hours, and at a location different than her normal worksite.
The County contested Calvo's claim, and a hearing was held by the Workers' Compensation Commission ("the Commission") on October 30, 2015. On November 6, 2015, the Commission ruled that Calvo's accident arose out of and in the scope of her employment and was, therefore, compensable.
On December 1, 2015, the County appealed the Commission's award to the circuit court and requested a jury trial. The County then filed a motion for summary judgment, and Calvo filed an opposition. A hearing on the County's motion was held on June 23, 2016. The circuit court ruled that as a matter of law, Calvo's injuries did not arise out of and in the course of her employment, and the court granted the County's motion for summary judgment. Calvo timely appealed.
We have combined and reworded Calvo's questions for clarity, as follows:1
Did the circuit court err in granting the County's motion for summary judgment?
For the following reasons, we find no error in the circuit court's grant of summary judgment.
All bus drivers employed by the County are required to a take an annual customer service training.2 Calvo was notified on May 6, 2015, that she would be required to take the training on Saturday, May 16, 2015, from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., at the Gaithersburg Depot.
Calvo did not normally work on Saturdays nor did she usually report to work at the Gaithersburg Depot location. She was not required to wear her bus-driver uniform to the customer service training. Calvo was not provided with transportation to the training; she used her personal vehicle and did not receive mileage reimbursement from the County for her travel to the training. She was not paid during the time that she was driving to the training, but she was to be paid her regular rate of pay to begin upon her arrival at the training.
On her way to the training, Calvo was rear-ended by another vehicle while waiting at a traffic light. She was unable to attend the training on May 16, 2015, and attended another training on October 17, 2015.
Calvo had been employed by the County as a bus driver for nineteen years at the time of her accident.
"Workers' compensation cases . . . occupy a special niche in Maryland civil law." Baltimore Cty. v. Kelly, 391 Md. 64, 67 (2006). Therefore, before we turn to the merits, we first revisit the procedural considerations of workers' compensation appeals and the relevant case law.
The Maryland Workers Compensation Act (the "Act") provides benefits to employees who suffer an accidental injury that "arises out of and in the course of employment." Md. Code (1993, 2008), Labor & Employment Article ("L&E") § 9-101(b)(1).
The "course of employment" test directs our attention to the time, place, and circumstances of the accident. Montgomery Cty. v. Wade, 345 Md. 1, 11 (1997) (citations omitted). "In determining whether an injury occurred 'in the course of employment,' we consider the time, place, and circumstances of the accident in relation to the employment." Livering v. Richardson's Rest., 374 Md. 566, 576-77 (2003) (quoting Wade, 345 Md. at 11).
"'Arises out of' refers to the causal connection between the employment and the injury." Id. at 574. However, the phrase "arises out of" does not require that the injury be directly caused by the performance of an employment-related task, but rather requires, "more broadly, that the injury be incidental to the employment, such that it was by reason of the employment that the employee was exposed to the risk resulting in the injury." Id. at 574-75 (quoting Mulready v. Univ. Research Corp., 360 Md. 51, 57 (2000)).
The facts and circumstances of each individual case determine whether an injury arises out of and in the course of employment. Id. at 574 (citing Knoche v. Cox, 282 Md. 447, 454 (1978)).
The Act is "remedial, social legislation designed to protect workers and their families from various hardships that result from employment-related injuries." Id. at 574 (citation omitted). Therefore, the Act is to be construed liberally in favor of injured employees in order to effectuate its "benevolent purposes." Id. (quoting Bethlehem-Sparrows Point Shipyard, Inc. v. Hempfield, 206 Md. 589, 594 (1955)).
"Ordinarily, an employee that suffers an injury going to or returning from their place of work is not considered to be acting in the course of their employment." Garrityv. Injured Workers' Ins. Fund, 203 Md. App. 285, 293 (2005) (citations omitted). However, there are a several exceptions to this "going and coming" rule barring recovery. Bd. of Cty. Comm'rs for Frederick Cty. v. Vache, 349 Md. 526, 532 (1998).
An employee seeking compensation for a work-related injury first files a claim with the Commission. See L&E § 9-709. The Newell v. Richards, 323 Md. 717, 732 (1991) (citations omitted).
"A party dissatisfied by the action of the Commission may seek review in a circuit court by either proceeding on the record made before the Commission (much like a judicial review of the final action of most state administrative agencies) or receive a new evidentiary hearing and decision before a jury (much like an original civil complaint brought in a circuit court)." Kelly, 391 Md. at 67-68; S.B. Thomas, Inc., 114 Md. App. 357, 364-66 (1997) (); L&E § 9-745.3 On appeal, the Commission'sdecision is entitled to a presumption of correctness, i.e. prima facie correct, that must be overcome. Kelly, 391 Md. at 68. However, the presumption of correctness "is only pertinent when the issue on appeal to the circuit court is one of fact and not of law." Simmons v. Comfort Suite Hotels, 185 Md. App. 203, 211 (2009) (citations omitted).
Essentially, although courts accord deference to an administrative agency's interpretation of the statute it administers, we may always determine whether the agency made an error of law. Long v. Injured Workers' Ins. Fund, 448 Md. 253, 264 (2016).
On appeal from a decision by the circuit court, where the sole issue presented is one of law, the appellate court reviews the decision de novo, without deference to the decisions of either the Commission or the circuit court. Prince George's Cty. v. Proctor, 228 Md. App. 579, 587 (2016); Walk v. Hartford Cas. Ins. Co., 382 Md. 1, 14, (2004).
In this case, after requesting a jury trial, the County filed a motion for summary judgment and asserted that there was no dispute of fact. On appeal before this Court, the County continues to assert that there is no issue of material fact. Therefore, as no issue of fact need be determined by a jury, the County is not seeking review by a jury, but rather seeking review by the court "on the record made before the Commission," Kelly, 391 Md. at 67, via the "routine appeal process." Id. at 74 (citation omitted). To put it another way, the County essentially first appealed requesting a full de novo trial, but via a motion for summary judgment first utilized the "routine appeal" process and requested a review of the record before the commission for a determination of legal error.
Under Md. Rule 2-501(a), a "party may file a written motion for summary judgment on all or part of an action on the ground that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." However, "even where the underlying facts are undisputed, if those facts are susceptible of more than one permissible inference, the choice between those inferences should not be madeas a matter of law, but should be submitted to the trier of fact." Fenwick Motor Co., Inc. v. Fenwick, 258 Md. 134, 138 (1970) (citations omitted).
Appellate courts review grants of summary judgment de novo. Kelly, 391 Md. at 73 (citations omitted). The proper standard of review is whether the trial court's decision was legally correct. Converge Servs. Grp., LLC v. Curran, 383 Md. 462, 476 (2004).
As the Court of Appeals did in Kelly, we now consider whether a review before a circuit court was amenable to disposition on a motion for summary judgment. The circuit court correctly determined that summary judgment was appropriate because there was no dispute of material fact. The circuit court then turned to the strictly legal question of whether Calvo's injury was barred by the going and coming rule or whether it arose out of and in the scope of her employment because she was on a special mission or errand. See Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Jakelski, 45 Md. App. 7, 8 (1980) ().
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