Marsheck v. Board of Trustees

• Decision Date: 12 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. 69,69
• Citation: 358 Md. 393,749 A.2d 774
• Parties: Charlotte MARSHECK v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the FIRE & POLICE EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF the CITY OF BALTIMORE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

749 A.2d 774

358 Md. 393

Charlotte MARSHECK v. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the FIRE & POLICE EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF the CITY OF BALTIMORE.

No. 69, Sept. Term, 1999.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 12, 2000.

Henry L. Belsky and Kimberly A. Alley (Schlachman, Belsky & Weiner, P.A., on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

William R. Phelan, Jr., Principal Counsel and Avery M. Muller, Asst. City Sol. (Otho M. Thompson, City Sol., on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL and HARRELL, JJ HARRELL, Judge.

Charlotte Marsheck, Petitioner, applied to the Fire and Police Employees' Retirement System of the City of Baltimore, Respondent, for special disability benefits under Baltimore City Code (1983 Repl.Vol. & 1995 Supp.), Article 22, § 34(e) for a work-related injury. Pursuant to Baltimore City Code (1983 Repl.Vol. & 1995 Supp.), Article 22, § 33(1), an administrative hearing was held on her application before a hearing examiner, who determined that Petitioner was ineligible for special disability benefits because she failed to file her application timely. Petitioner sought judicial review in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The Circuit Court held that the hearing examiner correctly determined that Petitioner's application was untimely. Petitioner then appealed to the Court of Special Appeals which affirmed. We granted Ms. Marsheck's petition for writ of certiorari. Marshek v. Board of Trustees of the Fire and Police Employees' Retirement System of the City of Baltimore, 355 Md. 610, 735 A.2d 1105 (1999). She presents us with the following questions, which we rephrase as follows:

I. Did the Court of Special Appeals err, in affirming the Circuit Court's ruling that the hearing examiner properly denied Petitioner's application for special disability, by construing the term "injury", as used in Article 22, § 34(e) of the Baltimore City Code, to begin at the time Petitioner originally sustained her work-related back injury on 13 February 1992?

II. Did the Court of Special Appeals err in failing to apply the "substantial compliance" standard to Petitioner's untimely filing of her special disabilities benefit application?

We affirm the judgments of the Court of Special Appeals and the Circuit Court.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The facts of this case are not in dispute. Petitioner began her employment as a Baltimore City police officer on 15 August 1985. On 13 February 1992, she sustained a work-related back injury while on duty. Despite the injury, she continued to serve with the police department, at times as a full duty police officer and at other times, due to the injury, on light duty status. Throughout her service, she underwent medical treatment and physical therapy. In September 1996, her back problems worsened and she became unable to return to work with the department in any capacity. Until that point, by all indications, Petitioner made every effort to continue her employment with the police department until she could no longer serve physically. Petitioner acknowledged that she did not sustain a subsequent injury to her back following the 13 February 1992 workrelated injury.

After a three year period during which Ms. Marsheck endured several surgeries on her back, multiple epidural injections and steroid blocks, and severe depression, her physician opined, on 6 February 1997, that Petitioner was one hundred percent disabled from performing her duties with the police department. On 12 February 1997, Petitioner's then attorney sent, via first-class mail, an application for special disability benefits to Respondent. Respondent replied, by letter dated 19 February 1997, informing Petitioner that her application was received by it on 18 February 1997 and, furthermore, that the application was not notarized as required. The application was returned via first-class mail to Petitioner on 19 February 1997. Petitioner then sent a properly notarized application which was docketed as received by Respondent on 25 February 1997.

On 22 May 1997, at an administrative hearing before the Respondent's examiner, Respondent argued that Petitioner did not file her application within five years of her 13 February 1992 injury, as required by § 34(e) of Article 22 of the City Code.¹ Petitioner contended that the applicable date of injury under § 34(e) is the date when she became permanently disabled or incapacitated and unable to work and, therefore, the five year statute of limitations did not begin to run until September 1996. The hearing examiner agreed with Respondent and denied Petitioner special disability benefits under § 34(e) and awarded her only ordinary disability benefits pursuant to § 34(c).²

Petitioner filed a timely petition for judicial review of the hearing examiner's decision in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.³ In an order dated 4 February 1998, the Circuit Court affirmed the hearing examiner's decision. Petitioner then filed an appeal of the Circuit Court's decision to the Court of Special Appeals which affirmed the Circuit Court's judgment.

I.

Petitioner asks us to equate the term "injury", as it is used in § 34(e), to mean the date a police officer becomes permanently disabled and incapacitated from being able to perform police duties and, thus, forced into retirement. Based on this argument, Petitioner's "injury" would occur sometime in September 1996, the earliest date her health deteriorated to the point that she permanently became unable to perform any police duties. She reasons that Respondent's position that any claim for special disability benefits must be filed within five years of her original injury on 13 February 1992 is illogical. Petitioner explains that an injured employee may not apply for special disability benefits earlier than the date of permanent disability. This being so, Petitioner reasons, disability may not evolve, in all cases, within five years of the original work-related injury. For example, an injured employee might make every effort, as Petitioner appears to have done here, to continue employment, albeit at a reduced level of activity, rather than pursue special disability benefits as the first course of action. In choosing that praiseworthy path, an employee might pass the five year cut-off date, suffer a subsequent deterioration in medical condition to the point of total disability, and be barred from seeking special disability benefits. This, Petitioner submits, is not a just result under the circumstances. Moreover, Petitioner theorizes that Respondent's position must be contrary to the City Council's intent in drafting the statute because it punishes dedicated employees who endeavor to continue to work. Such a policy, claims Petitioner, encourages an employee to apply frivolously or prematurely for retirement for fear of never being able to collect special disability benefits when his or her health degenerates due to work-related injuries.

In contrast, Respondent argues that the term "injury" refers clearly and unambiguously to the original incident that causes the worker to eventually become permanent disabled, or incapacitated. Respondent states that § 34(e) requires that the application for special disability benefits be filed within five years of the injury, rather than the date of permanent disability or incapacitation that may be traced to the injury. Furthermore, Respondent asserts the public policy legitimacy of the City Council's five year cut-off date because special disability benefits are substantially greater than ordinary disability benefits. This argument begins with the premise that the City Council provides generous benefits to reward City workers injured in the line of duty. Tied with this generosity, however, the City Council exercised its discretion to set a cut-off date for employees hired after 1 July 1979 in order to: 1) protect against frivolous claims; and 2) supply the relatively greater certitude of objectively verifiable dates and events in lieu of potentially difficult questions of proof and causation that may be presented otherwise.

This Court presumes that the decision made by an administrative body is prima facie correct. See Baltimore Lutheran High School Ass'n, Inc. v. Employment Sec. Admin., 302 Md. 649, 662-63, 490 A.2d 701, 708 (1985). We, therefore, limit our review of a final decision from an administrative agency to determining whether the agency had before it, at the time its decision was rendered, substantial evidence to support its decision and whether the agency's decision is free from prejudicial legal error.⁴ See Baltimore Lutheran, 302 Md. at 662, 490 A.2d at 708. Because of the deference courts ordinarily accord the expertise of an administrative agency acting within the sphere of its regulated activities, we refrain from making our own independent findings of fact or substituting our judgment for that of the agency when the record contains substantial evidence supporting the agency's determination. See State Admin. Bd. of Election Laws v. Billhimer, 314 Md. 46, 58, 548 A.2d 819, 825-26 (1988); Baltimore Lutheran, 302 Md. at 662, 490 A.2d at 708. Petitioner presents us with a solely legal issue, namely to determine the meaning of the term "injury" as used in § 34(e). Our task, therefore, is the ascertainment of whether the legislative body intended the term "injury" in § 34(e) to mean the point at which a police officer becomes permanently disabled.

"Fundamentally, the object of all statutory construction is to determine and effectuate the enactment's purpose." Briggs v. State, 289 Md. 23, 31, 421 A.2d 1369, 1374 (1980). Generally, if the language of the statute is unambiguous and its meaning is plain and definite, our inquiry as to the legislature's intent will end and we will not venture outside the words of the statute. See Martin v. Beverage Capital Corp., 353 Md. 388, 399, 726 A.2d 728, 733 (1999); Kaczorowski v. Mayor of Baltimore...