King Furniture Mfg. Co. v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 09 February 1968
• Docket Number: No. 88,88
• Citation: 248 Md. 682,238 A.2d 231
• Parties: KING FURNITURE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Inc., et al. v. Albert THOMPSON.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 682

248 Md. 682

238 A.2d 231

KING FURNITURE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, Inc., et al. v. Albert THOMPSON.

No. 88.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 9, 1968.

Robert J. Thieblot and Donald L. Allewalt, Baltimore (Allen, Thieblot & Highes and Allewalt, Cullen & Gibbons, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellants.

Livingston W. Yourtee, Severna Park, for appellee.

Before HAMMOND, C. J., and HORNEY, MARBURY, BARNES, FINAN and SINGLEY, JJ.

HORNEY, Judge.

The employer and insurer, claiming that the title to Chapter 322 of the Laws of 1965 (adding § 36(3a) to § 36(3) of Article 101 concerning the payment of compensation to a claimant 'having a serious disability') did not properly describe what is in the body of the act, contends that the addition is unconstitutional.

The claimant (Albert Thompson) sustained an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment and as a result suffered a hundred per cent loss of use of the right eye. At the time of the accident his average weekly wage was $80. Subsection (b) of § 36(3) stipulates that compensation for the loss of an eye shall be paid for a period of two hundred weeks. Subsection (a) of § 36(3) provides that a permanent partial disability (which includes the loss of an eye) shall be compensated at the rate of sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of the average weekly wages or a maximum of $25.00 per week. And subsection (3a) of § 36(3), providing that a person receiving an award of one hundred and seventy-five weeks or more shall be considered to have a serious disability, specifies that such person, in addition to the award under subsection (b) of § 36(3), shall automatically be entitled to an extra award of weeks equal to one-third the number of weeks theretofore awarded with the maximum increased to $40.00 per week. Had the compensation commission not been required to award the claimant the extra number of weeks at the increased maximum, the award of compensation would have been $5000, but under the added subsection (3a) the award of compensation computed to the nearest number of weeks at the maximum of $40 per week amounts to $10,680.

Specifically, the employer and insurer (King Furniture Manufacturing Company and Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Company), contend: (i) that the title of the act is misleading in derogation of § 29 of Article III of the Constitution of Maryland; (ii) that the act violates Article 20 of the Declaration of Rights in that it sets up an irrebuttable presumption of fact that the claimant had a 'serious disability'; and (iii) that the act constitutes an arbitrary classification in violation of Article 23 of the Declaration of Rights and the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. All are without merit.

(i)

The first contention is based on the premise that the title is misleading, or rather deceptive, in that it purports to create new categories or classifications of the seriously disabled but does not expressly define the term 'serious disability' in the body of the act.

One of the relevant provisions of § 29 of Article III of the state constitution requires that 'every Law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject, and that shall be described in its title.' Another provision states that no law shall 'be construed by reason of its title, to grant powers, or confer rights which are not expressly contained in the body of the Act.'

The title in controversy reads-

'An Act to add new Sections 36(3a) and 36(4a) to Article 101 * * * amending the Workmen's Compensation Laws concerning benefits payable to certain persons suffering a permanent partial disability under these laws, in order to create certain new categories of persons having a serious disability, and relating generally to the Workmen's Compensation benefits of, and the conditions under which payable to, persons having a 'serious disability' under the workmen's compensation laws.'

As it is conceded that the General Assembly could have increased the compensation for the scheduled disabilities set forth in subsections (a) and (b) of § 36(3) by repeal and reenactment, the only part of the body of § 36(3a) which is material in this case merely states that '(a) person who receives under subsection (3) of this section an award for a period of one hundred and seventy-five weeks or more is thereby considered to have a serious disability.'

It is severally argued that although the title creates a new classification of 'serious disability,' the right to be included within the class is not expressly contained in the body of the act; that the title indicates that the body of the act would set up a standard for and define what constitutes a 'serious disability' but all that it does is provide additional compensation for certain disabilities previously scheduled in another section; and, finally, that the constitutional infirmity lies in the fact that the new classification is not adequately defined as the title implies it would be. We disagree.

As we read it, the title of the act states in effect that the compensation laws concerning benefits payable to certain persons suffering permanent partial disability were being amended in order to create a new category of those persons having a serious disability and to provide for the payment, and the conditions under which payable, of compensation benefits to such seriously disabled persons, and the body of the act explicitly provides that persons receiving an award of one hundred and seventy-five weeks or more are 'considered to have a serious disability.' While it might have been less confusing had the General Assembly repealed and reenacted § 36(3) to include the substance of § 36(3a), it is difficult to see how anyone could be deceived or misled as to the meaning and effect of subsection (3a) or why the term 'serious disability' should have been defined.

The title in controversy, in stating that the purpose of the addition was to 'create certain new categories of persons having a serious disability, and relating generally to the * * * (compensation) benefits of, and the conditions under which payable to' seriously disabled persons, fairly described what was in the body of the act. Baltimore Transit Co. v. Metropolitan MTA, 232 Md. 509, 194 A.2d 643 (1963); Leonardo v. Board of County Commissioners of St. Mary's County, 214 Md. 287, 134 A.2d 284 (1957). Moreover, the title was sufficient to inform the legislators and public of the general nature of the subject matter of the act and this was all that was necessary. Jacobs v. Klawans, 225 Md. 147, 169 A.2d 677 (1961); Bell v. Board of County Commissioners of Prince George's County, 195 Md. 21, 72 A.2d 746 (1950); Neuenschwander v. Washington S. S. C., 187 Md. 67, 48 A.2d 593 (1946). Clearly, there was nothing in the body of the act which was foreign to the subject matter described in the title. Warren v. Board of Appeals, State of Maryland Department of Employment Security, 226 Md. 1, 172 A.2d 124 (1961); Scharf v. Tasker, 73 Md. 378, 21 A. 56 (1891).

The addition to § 36(3) was certainly not intended to set up a new classification for persons suffering a 'permanent partial disability.' Rather, what the Legislature did was to provide that an injured person who was entitled to compensation for one hundred seventy-five weeks or more for some of the scheduled disabilities stipulated in § 36(3) should thereafter be considered to have a 'serious disability' and as a consequence eligible for an extra award of weeks (in addition to the original award) compensable at a higher rate for the total number of weeks awarded.

Even if the title indicates that the body of the act would set forth a standard as to what constitutes a 'serious disability,'...