Lovellette v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore

• Decision Date: 28 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 128,128
• Parties: Elisha LOVELLETTE, Jr. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE and Subsequent Injury Fund.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 271

297 Md. 271

465 A.2d 1141

Elisha LOVELLETTE, Jr. v. MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE and Subsequent Injury Fund.

No. 128.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Sept. 28, 1983.

William H. Engelman, Baltimore (Kaplan, Heyman, Greenberg, Engelman & Belgrad, P.A., Baltimore, on brief), for appellant.

L. William Gawlik, Asst. City Sol., Baltimore (Benjamin L. Brown, City Sol. and Sheldon H. Press, Chief Sol., Baltimore, on brief), for appellee, Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.

John J. Szymanski, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on brief), for appellee, Subsequent Injury Fund.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.

MURPHY, Chief Judge.

This case involves a workmen's compensation claim filed by a municipal fire fighter pursuant to Maryland Code (1957, 1979 Repl.Vol.) Article 101, § 64A, which provides in pertinent part:

"(a) Any condition or impairment of health of any paid municipal ... fire fighter ... caused by lung diseases, heart diseases, or hypertension ... resulting in total or partial disability or death shall be presumed to be compensable under this article and to have been suffered in the line of duty and as a result of his employment.

"(b) Any paid fire fighter ... whose compensable claim results from a condition or impairment of health caused by lung diseases, heart diseases or hypertension ... and has been suffered in the line of duty shall receive such benefits as are provided for in this article in addition to such benefits as he may be entitled to under the retirement system in which said fire fighter ... was a participant at the time of his claim. The benefits received under this article however, shall be adjusted so that the total of all weekly benefits shall not exceed one hundred percent of the weekly salary which was paid to said fire fighter ...."

The relevant facts are these: Elisha Lovellette, Jr., at age fifty-four, was a twenty-six year veteran of the Baltimore City Fire Department when, on May 16, 1977, his truck company responded to a fire alarm. During the course of his duties on the fire scene, Lovellette tried to lift an extremely heavy overhead door when he experienced sharp chest pains and tightness across his chest. He was taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital. He was released the same day when his distress abated, but a few hours later, upon reporting to the fire department infirmary, he again experienced "vice-like" chest discomfort, and was admitted to Mercy Hospital. Lovellette was treated in the hospital's coronary care unit where he remained for twenty-four days. He never returned to work. On February 9, 1978, he was retired from the Fire Department after qualifying for a special disability pension. Shortly thereafter, Lovellette filed his claim for benefits under § 64A.

At a hearing before the Commission's Medical Board for Occupational Diseases, Lovellette testified that he had been in excellent health when he joined the Fire Department in 1951 and, until the events of May 16, 1977, had never suffered from high blood pressure or heart disease. Medical reports were submitted which attributed Lovellette's distress on the fire scene and his ensuing medical condition to an acute myocardial infarction ¹ initiated by the sudden stress and strain incident to his efforts to open the overhead door. The reports also noted the likely existence of some preexisting arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. ² The reports further indicated the absence of any family history of hypertension or heart disease.

The Medical Board concluded from the testimony and the medical reports "that the claimant's acute coronary disease was directly the result of immediate sudden strenuous activity and considers it to be accidental in nature." The Board further concluded that Lovellette did not sustain an occupational disease within the contemplation and coverage of § 64A, although it acknowledged that "the alleged disease, condition or impairment" was caused by Lovellette's employment.

Lovellette petitioned the Commission for a review of the Medical Board's findings and decision. After conducting a hearing, the Commission said:

"After review of all the evidence this Commission finds that the claimant sustained an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment and reaffirms the decision of the Medical Board as to occupational disease."

The Commission noted that its determination that Lovellette's condition resulted from an accidental injury precluded him from recovering workmen's compensation benefits under the financially more beneficial occupational disease provisions of § 64A. ³ In so holding, the Commission relied upon Colgan v. Board of Co. Comm'rs, 21 Md.App. 331, 320 A.2d 82 (1974), aff'd, Bd. of Co. Comm'rs v. Colgan, 274 Md. 193, 334 A.2d 89 (1975).

Lovellette appealed to the Superior Court of Baltimore City (now the Circuit Court for Baltimore City). He contended that the Commission erred as a matter of law in its interpretation of § 64A and of the decision in the Colgan case.

Colgan involved a county fire fighter who suffered two heart attacks while at work; the first occurred when he was filling out papers in the fire station and the second, six months later, while he was supervising the remodeling of a new Fire Department office. ⁴ Colgan claimed workmen's compensation benefits under § 64A, not for an accidental injury, but for an occupational disease. The Commission nevertheless considered the claim as one for accidental injury and rejected it. Colgan's appeal eventually reached the Court of Special Appeals where he claimed that he was entitled to benefits under § 64A because his disability was caused by occupational heart disease which, under the statute, was presumed to be work-related and compensable in the absence of a showing that his medical condition was not causally related to his employment as a fire fighter. The Court of Special Appeals, in an opinion by Judge W. Albert Menchine, considered the legislative history underlying enactment of § 64A:

"Section 64A came into being as Chapter 695 of the Acts of 1971. In the course of its passage through the legislature, both the title and the body of the Bill (H.B. 433) were amended. As introduced, the title of the bill had provided, inter alia, that its purpose was to 'establish certain medical conditions where the death or disability of a fire fighter is presumed to be accidental and as a result of his employment.' (Emphasis added in Colgan.) An amendment to the title of the bill struck out the above quoted language and declared that its purpose was to 'provide that there is a presumption of compensable occupational disease in cases of certain fire fighters sustaining temporary or total disability or death under certain conditions.' (Emphasis added in Colgan.)

"The body of the bill at introduction had contained the words: 'presumed to have been accidental and to have been suffered in the course of his employment.' (Emphasis added in Colgan.) By amendment in the course of passage the above quoted language was stricken and the following words substituted: 'presumed to be compensable under this Article and to have been suffered in the line of duty and as a result of his employment.' (Emphasis added in Colgan.)"

Colgan, supra, 21 Md.App. at 335, 320 A.2d 82.

The intermediate appellate court found no repugnancy between the title and the body of the act; it said that § 64A "should be interpreted as granting such benefits in accordance with the provisions of [the workmen's compensation] article as they relate to occupational diseases." Id. at 336, 320 A.2d 82. Also noted by the court in Colgan, id. at 339, 320 A.2d 82, was that fourteen states have enacted legislation by which the disability of a fire fighter caused by lung or heart disease is presumed to be employment connected. The court, in rejecting several constitutional attacks on the special treatment afforded fire fighters under § 64A, noted that "There is general public knowledge that fire fighters, in the course of their daily activities, are exposed to inhalation of smoke or noxious fumes and are subjected to unusual stresses and strains." Id. at 343, 320 A.2d 82. Finding the statute constitutional, the court remanded the case "for consideration as for an occupational disease" and determination whether Colgan's heart disease was compensable under § 64A.

We affirmed the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals in Colgan, adopting that court's conclusions and much of the language of its opinion. Additionally, we noted that § 64A "does not deal with accidental injury," 274 Md. at 200, 334 A.2d 89; that "the Act addressed itself to compensable disease," id. at 209, 334 A.2d 89; and that § 64A should be regarded "as an extension of the benefits provided by statute for occupational disease," id. at 210, 334 A.2d 89. We also concluded that the presumption under § 64A is a rebuttable one of fact, and not of law. Id.

In interpreting Colgan, the Superior Court (Karwacki, J.) held that for Lovellette to recover under § 64A, it was an essential prerequisite that the Medical Board find that he suffered from an occupational disease; that the Board found that Lovellette's condition "was the result of an accidental injury of traumatic origin"; and that since Lovellette's medical condition was not considered to be an occupational disease under § 64A, that section had no application.

Lovellette appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. In affirming the trial court's order in an unreported opinion, that court said:

"Appellant contends that § 64A's presumption automatically takes effect whenever a fire fighter claims to have suffered any disability impairment of health as a result of heart or lung diseases or hypertension. Our reading of the statute does not support this construction. According to § 64A there must be an initial determination of the existence...