Lockerman v. Prince George's County

• Decision Date: 10 October 1977
• Docket Number: No. 25,25
• Citation: 377 A.2d 1177,281 Md. 195
• Parties: Margaret K. LOCKERMAN v. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Maryland, et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 195

281 Md. 195

377 A.2d 1177

Margaret K. LOCKERMAN v. PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Maryland, et al.

No. 25.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 10, 1977.

George E. Meng, Upper Marlboro (Pitrof & Starkey, Upper Marlboro, on the brief), for appellant.

Charles R. Goldsborough, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen. and J. Howard Holzer, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on the brief for State of Maryland and State Accident Fund; and by Alan E. D'Appolito, Assoc. County Atty., Upper Marlboro (James C. Chapin, County Atty. and Michael O. Connaughton, Deputy County Atty., Upper Marlboro, on the brief), for Prince George's County.

Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SMITH, DIGGES, LEVINE, ELDRIDGE and ORTH, JJ.

DIGGES, Judge.

The appellant, Margaret K. Lockerman, sustained injuries as the result of an accident which occurred on April 5, 1973, while she was serving as a petit juror in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County. The sole issue before us on this appeal is whether a juror is an employee within the contemplation of the Workmen's Compensation Act, Md.Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol., 1976 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101, § 21, and hence whether Ms. Lockerman's injuries are compensable under that statute. We conclude, as did the circuit court, that the question presented must be answered in the negative.

Such of the facts as are relevant to this appeal are undisputed and may be briefly stated. The appellant, regularly employed at the time as a journeyman bindery woman by the federal government, in obedience to a summons reported to the Prince George's County courthouse in Upper Marlboro for jury duty on Monday, April 2, 1973; later in the week she fell as she was leaving the jury box and suffered injuries to her knee and back. She filed a claim with the Workmen's Compensation Commission which, on August 1, 1975, awarded her compensation after finding, inter alia, that the claimant was an employee of Prince George's County at the time of the injury. Dissatisfied with this finding, the county filed its appeal to the circuit court, maintaining that the claimant as a juror was not an employee as defined by the Act, or in the alternative that if she was, she was an employee of the State of Maryland and not of the county. ¹ Following a hearing, the Circuit Court for Prince George's County (Levin, J.) on February 7, 1977, reversed the Commission's order, finding that Ms. Lockerman was not an employee either of Prince George's County or of the State and was thus not entitled to compensation. The claimant noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, and we granted certiorari prior to that court's consideration of the case. We now affirm the judgment of the circuit court.

The appellant here argues that she was an employee within the coverage of the Workmen's Compensation Act by virtue of either subsection (b)(4) or (b)(5) of section 21. The pertinent provisions of that section, in effect at the time of the accident, remain unchanged today and read:

(b) Coverage of employees. The following shall constitute employees subject to the provisions of this act . . . :

(4) Every person in the service of any political subdivision or agency thereof, under any contract of hire, express or implied, and every official or officer thereof, whether elected or appointed, while performing his official duties. . . .

(5) Every person performing services for remuneration in the course of the trade, business, profession or occupation of an employer at the time of the injury, provided such person in relation to this service does not maintain a separate business, does not hold himself out to and render service to the public and (is) not himself an employer subject to this act. (Md.Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol., 1976 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101, § 21(b)(4) & (5).)

For reasons which will shortly appear, we think that counsel for the appellant was not imprudent when, at oral argument before this Court, he virtually abandoned his contention that a contract of hire existed between the juror here and either Prince George's County or the State of Maryland, so as to bring Ms. Lockerman within the coverage of section 21(b)(4), which explicitly requires such a contract. ² The appellant, however, proceeds to present the novel argument that, although normally the employer-employee relationship is a contractual one, the legislature, by adopting section 21(b)(5), provided coverage unlike that in any other state, and eliminated the necessity that there exist a contractual relationship. Assuming without deciding that section 21(b)(5) has application to the State or its political subdivisions, we think the long-settled principle that the relation of employer and employee is contractual, see Balto. Boot Co. v. Jamar, 93 Md. 404, 413, 49 A. 847, 850 (1901); 9 M.L.E. Employent; Work and Labor § 2 (1961), viewed in conjunction with the underlying premise that workmen's compensation acts are designed to recompense employees for accidental injuries arising out of and in the course of their employment, 1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 1.10 (1972), renders such an argument manifestly absurd. The language of section 21(b)(5) and simple common sense likewise suggest the same conclusion; hence we decline to attribute any such intention to the legislature.

Our predecessors recognized the principles we now reiterate more than a quarter-century ago, when they opined: "Of course, in order to warrant payment of compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, it is essential that there should have existed at the time of the injury (an express or implied) contract of employment between the alleged employer and the injured workman." Sun Cab Co. v. Powell, 196 Md. 572, 579, 77 A.2d 783, 786 (1951). For that proposition the Court in Sun Cab did not cite the text of the statute (which as it then read, without using the term "contract" in its definition of "employee," merely described an employee as "a person who is engaged in an extra-hazardous employment in the service of an employer . . .," see Law of May 6, 1941, ch. 627, § 1, 1941 Md.Laws 1079 (codified at Md.Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol.), Art. 101, § 67(3)) (current version at Md.Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol., 1976 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101, §§ 67(3) & 21)) but simply the case law of other jurisdictions. 196 Md. at 579, 77 A.2d 783 (786). For other formulations of the necessity for a contract, supportive of the views expressed in Sun Cab, see Hicks v. Guilford County, 267 N.C. 364, 367, 148 S.E.2d 240, 242-43 (1966) (statutory definition of employee phrased in terms of a contract of hire "adds nothing to the common law meaning of the term 'employee' "); Bendler v. Bendler, 3 N.J. 161, 69 A.2d 302, 303 (1949) ("(i)n common usage, one cannot be an employee without a contract"); Fisher v. City of Seattle, 62 Wash.2d 800, 804, 384 P.2d 852, 854 (1963) ("compensation law demands that, in order to find an employer-employee relation, a mutual agreement must exist between the employer and employee"); 81 Am.Jur.2d Workmen's Compensation § 153, at 824 (1976) (citing cases); 99 C.J.S. Workmen's Compensation § 65, at 279 (1958) (citing cases). Professor Larson, in discussing the reasons for the insistence in workmen's compensation statutes on the existence of a "contract of hire, express or implied," explains:

Compensation law . . . is a mutual arrangement between the employer and employee under which both give up and gain certain things. Since the rights to be adjusted are reciprocal rights between employer and employee, it is not only logical but mandatory to resort to the agreement between them to discover their relationship. To thrust upon a worker an employee status to which he has never consented . . . might well deprive him of valuable rights under the compensation act, notably the right to sue his own employer for common-law damages. (1A A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation § 47.10, at 8-146 to 8-148 (1973) (footnote omitted).)

Section 21(b)(5) itself "(e)very person performing services for remuneration" is couched in language that is the very essence of contract the quid pro quo. It strains credulity to suggest that, although using quintessentially contractual language, the legislature nevertheless intended to abrogate the heart of the ordinary employer-employee relationship. ³ And if, in fact, section 21(b)(5) eliminates the need for a contractual relationship between employer and employee, there would, for example, be no reason for the legislature to have provided specific coverage under the act for prisoners working for county entities in employments for which the county pays wages to the prisoner. Md.Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol., 1976 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101, § 35. This is so because if no contractual relationship were required a prisoner would clearly be a "person performing services for remuneration." Our conclusion here is in harmony with the well-settled principle that a statute is to be read so that no word, phrase, clause or sentence is rendered surplusage or meaningless. St. Comm'n on Human Rel. v. Baltimore, 280 Md. 35, 42, 371 A.2d 645, 649 (1977); Mazor v. State, Dep't of Correction, 279 Md. 355, 360, 369 A.2d 82, 86-87 (1977). It seems apparent to us that in those situations where the legislature has desired to provide coverage to persons not encompassed by the ordinary contractual relationship of employer-employee, it has done so with specificity. E. g., Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol., 1976 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101, § 21(b)(4) (volunteer fire or rescue squad or police department); see Moats v. State, 215 Md. 49, 53, 136 A.2d 757, 760 (1957) (amendments extending coverage of predecessor statute "to certain groups of employees who would not otherwise be regarded as 'workmen * * * employed for wages' give rise to the strong inference that those who are neither within the ordinary meaning of that term nor specifically declared to be deemed to be included within it, are not intended to...