Emps.' Ret. Sys. of City of Balt. v. Dorsey

• Decision Date: 23 January 2013
• Docket Number: No. 29,Sept. Term, 2012.,29
• Citation: 430 Md. 100,59 A.3d 990
• Parties: EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF the CITY OF BALTIMORE v. Sylvester DORSEY.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

430 Md. 100

59 A.3d 990

EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF the CITY OF BALTIMORE

v.Sylvester DORSEY.

No. 29, Sept. Term, 2012.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Jan. 23, 2013.

William R. Phelan, Jr., Chief Solicitor, and Herbert Burgunder, Jr., Special Principal Counsel (George A. Nilson, City Solicitor, Baltimore City Department of Law, Baltimore, MD), on brief, for petitioner.

Mitchel M. Gordon, Chartered, Baltimore, MD, for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, ADKINS, BARBERA and McDONALD, JJ.

BARBERA, J.

Baltimore City Code (2012), Article 22, § 9(j) ¹ lays out the eligibility requirements for certain EMPLOYEES OF THE City of Baltimore to receive line-of-duty disability retirement benefits.² THAT SECTION REQUIres a claimant seeking such benefits to prove that he or she sustained at least a “50% anatomical loss of the use of any 1 or at least a 25% or more anatomical loss of each of 2 or more” enumerated body parts. § 9(j)(5)(ii), (iii). The loss of use must be

the direct result of bodily injury through an accident independent of all other causes and independent of any preexisting physical or medical conditions, job-related or otherwise, occurring while in the actual performance of duty with the City at a definite time and place, without willful negligence on the part of the member.

§ 9(j)(1)(ii)(emphasis added).

Respondent, Sylvester Dorsey, was injured while performing his job as a school police officer in Baltimore City. Following the City's termination of his employment, Respondent applied for line-of-duty disability retirement with Petitioner, the Employees' Retirement System (“ERS”) of the City of Baltimore. A hearing examiner found that Respondent had a 25% impairment to his right arm and a 25% impairment to his back as a result of the work injury, and an additional 15% impairment to his back due to degenerative disc disease that was asymptomatic prior to the injury but became symptomatic following the injury. The hearing examiner denied the application for line-of-duty disability retirement. The hearing examiner concluded that Respondent did not satisfy the statutory requirements because “the impairment to [Respondent's] back is not independent of all other causes.” The hearing examiner reasoned that Respondent's degenerative disc disease “contribute[d]” to the disability of his back.

Respondent sought judicial review of the hearing examiner's decision, and the Circuit Court for Baltimore City reversed in Respondent's favor. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court. Employees' Ret. Sys. v. Dorsey, 203 Md.App. 304, 37 A.3d 1064 (2012). We granted the petition of the ERS to determine whether Respondent's preexisting condition precludes him from qualifying for line-of-duty disability retirement on the grounds that his impairment is not entirely independent of any preexisting physical or medical conditions. For reasons we shall explain, Respondent's preexisting condition does not preclude him from qualifying for line-of-duty disability retirement because he proved that 50% of his total level of disability ³ is the direct result of the injury he sustained while performing in the line of duty. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.

I.

Respondent began his employment with the City of Baltimore as a school police officer in August 2005. While on-duty on August 31, 2007, Respondent was involved in a violent altercation with a student's parent. During that incident, Respondent injured his lower back. A few weeks after that event Respondent returned to light work duty. He was unable, however, ever to return to full work duty.

On January 17, 2009, the City of Baltimore terminated Respondent's employment. Respondent subsequently filed an application for line-of-duty disability retirement. On July 12, 2010, a hearing examiner conducted a hearing on the claim, during which Respondent testified and numerous medical and other records were submitted into evidence.

Respondent testified that following the August 2007 incident he developed “a real sharp constant pain down the back of the right leg into the foot.” Respondent described having “weakness in the leg” causing his knee to “buckle [ ] constantly.” He also had difficulty walking up and down stairs. On one occasion, Respondent fell down the stairs after his legs “gave out.” Respondent separated his right shoulder as the result of that fall. He testified that as the result of the shoulder injury he suffered pain and had difficulty lifting, pushing and pulling. He also experienced constant pain in his back.

Respondent's treatment records disclose that prior to the hearing five MRIs were taken of his back; he received a series of steroid injections; and a nerve conduction study and decompression surgery were performed. Respondent was evaluated and/or treated by a number of physicians during the period between the August 31, 2007 incident and the July 2010 hearing on his claim for line-of-duty disability retirement. Several evaluating and treating physicians noted asymptomatic degenerative disc disease pre-dating the August 2007 injury. At least two of them opined about the degree to which that preexisting back condition affected Respondent's then-current level of disability. Dr. Jeffrey Gaber opined in April 2010 that Respondent had a 60% “anatomical loss to the lumbar spine, all due to the injury that occurred on August 31, 2007.” Dr. Friedler noted in June 2010 that Respondent's back was 35% disabled, “of which 15% is preexisting.”

Section 9(j) addresses the line-of-duty disability retirement benefit. That section requires the claimant to comply with the application process and filing deadline and further requires the hearing examiner to determine that the claimant is “permanently incapacitated for the further performance of the duties of his or her job classification in the employ of the City due to one or more of the impairments” listed in § 9(j)(5)(iii) ( e.g., “back” and “arm”). See § 9(j)(1)(i), (2). The claimant also must prove that he or she sustained “50% anatomical loss of the use of any 1 or at least a 25% or more anatomical loss of each of 2 or more” of the body parts listed in subsection 9(j)(5)(iii), see § 9(j)(5)(ii), “as the direct result of bodily injury through an accident independent of all other causes and independent of any preexisting physical or medical conditions, job-related or otherwise,” see § 9(j)(1)(ii). See also § 9(p)(11)(iv) (providing that the hearing examiner shall determine “generally, whether the member's disability qualifies under § 9(j) of this article,” and “specifically, whether the member's disability is, independent of any preexisting physical or medical condition, job-related or otherwise, the direct result of a bodily injury arising through an accident that occurred ... while in the actual performance of duty at some definite time and place”).⁴ The claimant has the burden to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that he or she, among other things, “ meets all of the eligibility requirements set by law for the applicable benefit.” § 9(p)(10)(i).

The hearing examiner found that Respondent filed timely his application for line-of-duty disability retirement and proved by a preponderance of the evidence that “he is permanently incapacitated from performing the duties of his job classification.” The hearing examiner further found that Respondent proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he had injured his back during the August 2007 assault, which occurred while he was performing his job duties in school.

The hearing examiner resolved the conflict among those physicians who had opined about the extent to which Respondent's preexisting degenerative disc disease affected his present disability, by finding that Respondent sustained a “40% disability to the back, with 15% of his impairment caused by the pre-existing condition and 25% due to the assault of 8/31/07.” The hearing examiner also found that Respondent suffered a “25% impairment to his back and 25% impairment to his right arm due to the assault which occurred in the line of duty on 8/31/07.”

The hearing examiner concluded nonetheless that Respondent was not entitled to the line-of-duty disability retirement benefit. The hearing examiner reasoned:

The statute does not say the Claimant must be free of any pre-existing condition, what the statute actually says is “the impairment” must be independent of any pre-existing physical or medical condition. The question is whether the pre-existing condition is contributory to the impairment. I conclude that the preponderance of the evidence is that the pre-existing lumbar degeneration does in fact contribute to the current impairment.

* * *

[T]he impairment to Mr. Dorsey's back is not independent of all other causes. The evidence is clear that the pre-existing degenerative disc disease in his back contributes to Mr. Dorsey's disability and without it Mr. Dorsey would not be as disabled as he currently is.

Consequently, the hearing examiner denied Respondent's application for line-of-duty disability retirement on the ground that he “does not meet the statutory requirements set forth in the City Code.”

Respondent filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City a petition for judicial review of the hearing examiner's decision. At the hearing on the petition, Respondent argued that the hearing officer had made an error of law by misconstruing § 9(j)(1)(ii). According to Respondent, that provision allows for preexisting conditions and requires only that the claimant prove, as the hearing officer found he had proved, that he suffered at least 50% total impairment (25% impairment of the back and 25% impairment of the right arm) as the direct result of a line-of-duty accident. Counsel for the ERS countered that the evidence supported the hearing officer's decision, which counsel characterized as a finding that “if [Respondent] didn't...