Jennifer v. Dept. of Corrections

• Decision Date: 26 September 2007
• Docket Number: No. 426 September Term, 2006.,426 September Term, 2006.
• Citation: 176 Md. App. 211,932 A.2d 1213
• Parties: Dave Shawn JENNIFER v. STATE of Maryland, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, and Division of Correction.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

932 A.2d 1213

176 Md. App. 211

Dave Shawn JENNIFER v. STATE of Maryland, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND CORRECTIONAL SERVICES, and Division of Correction.

No. 426 September Term, 2006.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

September 26, 2007.

Michael L. Sandul, Odenton, for Appellant.

Michael O. Doyle (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on the brief), Baltimore, for Appellee.

Panel: KRAUSER, WOODWARD, and WILLIAM W. WENNER (Ret., specially assigned), JJ.

KRAUSER, Judge.

While working in the kitchen of the Central Laundry Facility of the Maryland Division of Correction, prison inmate Dave Shawn Jennifer was attacked and injured by fellow prisoner and co-worker, Stanley B. Taylor. Jennifer brought an action in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against Taylor for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and against the State of Maryland¹ for violations of Article 25 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, but his suit proved unavailing. Holding that Jennifer's exclusive remedy against the State lay with the Sundry Claims Board, the circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the State and thereafter entered a default judgment against Taylor.

On appeal, Jennifer claims that the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment because his injury neither "arose out of his employment" nor was "accidental": two conditions that must be met, he insists, before Sundry Claims Board review can be obtained. Because we find that Jennifer's injury did indeed arise out of his employment, and because we conclude that the Board's jurisdiction is not limited to injuries that are "accidental," at least as that term is interpreted by Jennifer,² but includes injuries caused by the willful acts of third parties, we hold that Jennifer's exclusive remedy lies with the Sundry Claims Board. Accordingly, we shall affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

Background

On August 23, 2002, Jennifer was working in the Central Laundry Facility with fellow inmate Stanley B. Taylor, where he received a wage for the work he performed.³ On that August day, Jennifer asked the dietary officer on duty in the kitchen for permission to have a hamburger. The officer agreed and directed Taylor to serve Jennifer the food he requested. But Taylor refused and, according to Jennifer's complaint, "[a] heated argument" erupted between Taylor and the officer. It ended when Taylor stated that "he would rather throw [the hamburger] on the floor than give it to [Jennifer]," and then proceeded to do precisely that. The officer then ordered Taylor to leave the kitchen.

The next day, Taylor was again assigned to work in the kitchen. Although the two prisoners were placed in different areas of the kitchen and given separate duties, at some point Taylor "approached [Jennifer] from behind, holding a large spatula used to stir large pots" and struck him in the head with it.

Taylor was, at that time, according to Jennifer's complaint, "under care by [the State] for mental health problems . . . related to [his] violent disposition," but had, at that point, exhausted the medication he was taking for that condition. "Despite requests to [prison officials] for additional medicine," none, the complaint averred, was provided.

Discussion

Jennifer contends that the circuit court erred in holding that his sole remedy against the State lay with the Sundry Claims Board ("the Board") and, on that basis, entering summary judgment for the State.

Because this case was disposed of on a motion for summary judgment, our task would normally be to "`determine if there is a genuine dispute of material fact and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.'" Goldstein v. Miles, 159 Md.App. 403, 422, 859 A.2d 313 (2004) (quoting Crews v. Hollenbach, 126 Md.App. 609, 624, 730 A.2d 742 (1999), aff'd, 358 Md. 627, 751 A.2d 481 (2000)). But, since neither party alleges that there are any material facts in dispute, we confine our review of that motion to "whether summary judgment was correctly entered as a matter of law," Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Berrett, 395 Md. 439, 450-451, 910 A.2d 1072 (2006) (citing Ross v. State Bd. of Elections, 387 Md. 649, 658, 876 A.2d 692, (2005); Todd v. MTA, 373 Md. 149, 154, 816 A.2d 930 (2003); Beyer v. Morgan State Univ., 369 Md. 335, 359, 800 A.2d 707 (2002)), that is, "`whether the trial court was legally correct'" in granting summary judgment. Messing v. Bank of Am., N.A., 143 Md.App. 1, 10, 792 A.2d 312 (2002) (quoting Heat & Power Corp. v. Air Prods. & Chems., Inc., 320 Md. 584, 591, 578 A.2d 1202 (1990)). We conclude that it was.

The Sundry Claims Board Act⁴ ("SCBA") provides that the compensation authorized by that act is the "exclusive remedy against the State for a claim," § 10-308(c)⁵, made by "an individual, who while an inmate in the Patuxent Institution, the Baltimore City Detention Center, or a correctional facility in the Division of Correction: (1) was engaged in work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and (2) sustained a permanent partial disability or permanent total disability: (i) as a result of a personal injury arising out of and in the course of work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and (ii) that incapacitated [the claimant] or materially reduced [his or her] earning power in that type of work." § 10-304. See Dixon v. Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, 175 Md.App. 384, 927 A.2d 445 (2007).

Although Jennifer does not dispute that his injury occurred "in the course of his employment, while he was "engaged in work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility," and that he "sustained a permanent partial disability or total disability," id., he maintains that, because his injury neither "a[rose] out of his work nor was "accidental," id., it did not fall within the exclusive province of the Board.

"Arising Out Of"

The SCBA does not explicitly define the phrase "arising out of." Nor have our appellate courts considered the meaning of this phrase in the context of that act. But they have repeatedly considered its import in other statutory settings, notably § 9-101(b) of what is now entitled the Workers'⁶ Compensation Act ("WCA"),⁷ which employs this locution, as the SCBA does, in defining compensable claims. Section 9-101(b) of the WCA states that an injury covered by that act is one "that arises out of and in the course" of the claimant's employment. (Emphasis added.)

Jennifer maintains, however, that it would be error for us to assume that the legislature intended that the phrase, "arising out of," be given the same meaning in the SCBA that it has been given in the WCA. He claims that, where the legislature intended that phrases common to both acts would have the same meaning, it expressly said so in the SCBA. To illustrate his point, he invokes § 10-301(c) and § 10-301(d) of the SCBA, which respectively state that "permanent partial disability" and "permanent total disability" shall have the same meanings in the SCBA that they have in the WCA.⁸

But this argument is misleading. The SCBA relies on the WCA for the definitions of "permanent partial disability" and "permanent total disability" because those locutions, unlike "arising out of," are expressly defined in that act. In other words, the reason that the SCBA does not refer to the WCA's definition of "arising out of" is simply because it contains no such definition.

If those sections of the SCBA provide little support for Jennifer's position, the legislative history of the SCBA provides even less. In fact, as we shall see, that history compels us to conclude that the phrase, "arising out of," was placed in the SCBA to convey the same meaning that it does in the WCA.

Before the legislature enacted the SCBA, the WCA governed claims made by all workers, including inmates at Maryland's correctional facilities, for injuries "arising out of and in the course of" their employment.⁹ See Md.Code (1939), Art. 101, § 14. But, in 1961, inmate claims were removed from the WCA for all workers with the passage of the SCBA.¹⁰ That act established a separate board, the Sundry Claims Board, to handle claims for compensation made by prison inmates for work-related injuries. To be more precise, its purpose, in the words of the act, was to "amend[] the compensation laws to remove therefrom references to the payment of workmen's compensation to certain prisoners and inmates of penal institutions . . . [and] creat[e] a `Sundry Claims Board' to provide for the payment of claims for injuries to certain prisoners in this State, and relating generally to the payment of workmen's compensation benefits and to the payment of other claims for injuries incurred by prisoners and inmates of [Maryland] penal institutions." See Md.Code (1957, 1961 Supp.), Art. 41, § 188A.¹¹

In 1993, the SCBA was amended and the phrase, "arising out of," was added so that the act now expressly required that a prisoner's injury "aris[e] out of and in the course of work" to fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Sundry Claims Board. See 1993 Md. Laws, Chap. 133.¹² (Emphasis added.)

Re-codified in 1999 as §§ 10-301-10-310 of the Maryland Code, the statute currently provides, as we stated earlier, that the Board "shall administer benefits . . . to an individual who, while an inmate in the Patuxent Institution, the Baltimore City Detention Center, or a correctional facility in the Division of Corrections:

(1) was engaged in work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and

(2) sustained a permanent partial disability or permanent total disability:

(i) as a result of a personal injury arising out of and in the course of work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and

(ii) that incapacitated the individual or materially reduced...