Dissell v. Trans World Airlines

• Decision Date: 19 June 1986
• Citation: 511 A.2d 441
• Parties: E. Ann DISSELL v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES and Insurance Company of North America.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 441

511 A.2d 441

E. Ann DISSELL v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES and Insurance Company of North America.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued April 30, 1986.

Decided June 19, 1986.

Jensen, Baird, Gardner & Henry, Deborah M. Mann (orally), Nicholas Nadzo, Portland, for plaintiff.

Richardson, Tyler & Troubh, Eve H. Cimmet (orally), Portland, for defendant.

Before McKUSICK, C.J., and NICHOLS, ROBERTS, VIOLETTE, WATHEN and SCOLNIK, JJ.

WATHEN, Justice.

Trans World Airlines and its insurance carrier, Insurance Company of North America (hereinafter referred to simply as TWA), appeal from a decision of the Appellate Division of the Workers' Compensation Commission, affirming a single commissioner's award of compensation to E. Ann Dissell. TWA contends that the Commission lacked both personal jurisdiction over it and subject-matter jurisdiction over Dissell's compensation claim. Because we conclude that TWA has waived any right to review by this Court of its challenge to personal jurisdiction, we decline to consider that issue. In addition, we reject TWA's contention that the Workers' Compensation Commission lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, we affirm the award of compensation.

I.

In 1975, while a resident of Maryland, Ann Dissell applied to TWA for a job as a flight attendant. After interviews in Washington, D.C., and Kansas City, Missouri, TWA hired Dissell and assigned her to Kansas City. A TWA attendant's flights originate from and return to their assigned location.

In 1977, Dissell was assigned to Boston, Massachusetts, and she took up residence in Portland. One year later Dissell was transferred to New York for one year and was then transferred back to Boston, which remained her city of assignment until her injury in 1981. During this time, Dissell commuted from successive residences in Portland, Topsham, and Brunswick to the origination point of her flights in either Boston or New York.

On May 21, 1981, Dissell injured her back during a flight from Boston to Chicago. Immediately after the injury, she returned to her Maine residence and received medical treatment here. Dissell, who currently resides in Freeport, has not worked since her injury. Since July, 1981, she has received compensation pursuant to a signed agreement in which TWA agreed to pay benefits in accordance with the Massachusetts Workers' Compensation Act.

Dissell filed a petition for award with the Maine Workers' Compensation Commission on September 7, 1983. After conducting hearings, the single commissioner granted Dissell's petition on September 13, 1984, finding sufficient contacts to support the Commission's assertion of both personal and subject-matter jurisdiction and awarding ongoing compensation for total incapacity, with credit to TWA for payments made pursuant to the Massachusetts agreement. In response to a motion for findings of fact and conclusions of law, the single commissioner issued a supplemental decision stating that the finding as to subject-matter jurisdiction was based on TWA's business activities in Maine and on Dissell's residence in Maine.

TWA appealed the single commissioner's decision to the Appellate Division, raising only the issue of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Division, one panelist dissenting, affirmed the single commissioner. In its decision, the Division rejected the single commissioner's reliance on business activities but concluded that Dissell's residence in Maine was sufficient by itself to support the Commission's assertion of subject-matter jurisdiction over her claim. TWA next filed a petition seeking review of the Division decision by this Court. Again, TWA raised only the issue of subject-matter jurisdiction. We granted the petition for appellate review.

II.

In its briefs and in oral argument before this Court, TWA contends that the single commissioner's decision must be reversed because TWA does not have sufficient contacts with Maine to support the Commission's assertion of personal jurisdiction. Both the statute and the court rule governing prosecution of an appeal from a decision of the Appellate Division require that the petition for appellate review set forth the alleged errors of which review is sought. 39 M.R.S.A. § 103-C(1) (Pamph.1985); M.R.Civ.P. 73(i)(2). In its petition for appellate review, TWA did not assert any challenge to the single commissioner's finding of personal jurisdiction or the Appellate Division's failure to reverse that finding. By failing to do so, TWA has waived any right it may have had to review by this Court of the personal jurisdiction issue.

III.

We have previously held that the Legislature intended the Commission's subject-matter jurisdiction to be coextensive with that allowed by the United States Constitution. Harlow v. Emery-Waterhouse Co., 484 A.2d 1002, 1004-05 (Me.1984); Shannon v. Communications Satellite Corp., 302 A.2d 582, 584 (Me.1973). Given this legislative intent, TWA's challenge to the subject-matter jurisdiction of the Workers' Compensation Commission presents a question of constitutional limitations on choice-of-law ¹ imposed by the Due Process Clause and Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution. Harlow v. Emery-Waterhouse Co., 484 A.2d at 1004-05.

We have previously analyzed the limits imposed upon the Commission's subject-matter jurisdiction in terms of the following relevant contacts:

(1) place injury occurred; (2) place contract of employment was entered into (3) place employment relationship exists or is carried out; (4) place in which the business or industry is localized; (5) place of employee's residence; (6) the place the parties might have expressly designated in their employment contract to govern (by its law) their workmen's compensation rights and liabilities.

Id. at 1004. Of these contacts, only the employee's residence in Maine is present in this case. ² Thus, the issue in this case is whether, under the United States Constitution, Dissell's residence in Maine creates a sufficient state interest to support the Commission's assertion of subject-matter jurisdiction over her claim.

The federal constitution does not bar a state from applying its law to an occurrence so long as that state has "a significant contact or significant aggregation of contacts, creating state interests, such that choice of its law is neither arbitrary nor fundamentally unfair." Allstate Insurance Co. v. Hague, 449 U.S. 302, 313, 101 S.Ct. 633, 640, 66 L.Ed.2d 521 (1981). However, the two applicable constitutional provisions--the Due Process Clause and the Full Faith and Credit Clause--present distinct inquiries. The due process analysis is directed toward fairness to the litigants before the court, while full faith and credit analysis focuses on infringement upon the sovereignty of sister states. Id. at 320, 101 S.Ct. at 644 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment); Harlow v. Emery-Waterhouse Co., 484 A.2d at 1005.

As the Supreme Court has pointed out, the state where an employee lives has a considerable interest in ensuring adequate compensation for work-related injuries because "it is there that he is expected to return; and it is on his community that the impact of the injury is apt to be most keenly felt." Crider v. Zurich Insurance Co., 380 U.S. 39, 41, 85 S.Ct. 769, 770, 13 L.Ed.2d 641 (1965). See also Cardillo v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., 330 U.S. 469, 476, 67 S.Ct. 801, 805, 91 L.Ed. 1028 (1947) (state has "legitimate interest in providing adequate workmen's compensation measures for its residents"); Alaska Packers Association v. Industrial Accident Commission, 294 U.S. 532, 542, 55 S.Ct. 518, 521, 79 L.Ed. 1044 (1935) (danger that an injured employee might become a public charge is a matter of "grave public concern to the state"). In the present case, Ann Dissell became a Maine resident years before her injury, and in fact, Maine was her residence at the time of her injury and has remained such ever since. The existence of Maine's interest in ensuring that the burden resulting from Dissell's work-related injury falls upon her employer rather than upon her community precludes any contention that application of Maine law to Dissell's injury is arbitrary. Cf. Delano v. City of South Portland, 405 A.2d 222, 225 (Me.1979) (purpose of Workers' Compensation Act to transfer burden of industrial injuries from individual to employer). In addition, we perceive no fundamental unfairness in requiring TWA to compensate Dissell according to the law of the state in which she resides and upon which she would be dependent for...