Monumental Printing Co. v. Edell

• Citation: 164 A. 171,163 Md. 551
• Decision Date: 10 January 1933
• Docket Number: 46.
• Parties: MONUMENTAL PRINTING CO. ET AL. v. EDELL.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

164 A. 171

163 Md. 551

MONUMENTAL PRINTING CO. ET AL. v. EDELL.

No. 46.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 10, 1933

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Albert S. J. Owens, Judge.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Joseph August Edell, employee, opposed by the Monumental Printing Company employer, and the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, insurer. The State Industrial Accident Commission passed an order disallowing compensation, which was reversed on appeal to the Baltimore city court, and the employer and insurer appeal.

Reversed and remanded for a new trial.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, DIGGES, PARKE and SLOAN, JJ.

Rignal W. Baldwin, Jr., and George W. Newton, both of Baltimore (Harold Tschudi and Semmes, Bowen & Semmes, all of Baltimore on the brief), for appellants.

Harry K. Lott, of Baltimore (Louis Silberstein, Frank Klitzner, and Justinus Gould, all of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

DIGGES J.

The facts in this case, as shown by the record, are: The State Industrial Accident Commission, on August 14, 1930, passed an order disallowing compensation to the claimant. The commencement of the action in the Baltimore city court seems to have been by filing in that court notice of appeal given to the commission, and admission of service of such notice by one of the commissioners, in the following language: "To the honorable, the members of said Commission: Kindly enter an appeal on behalf of the claimant, August Edell, from the order of the Commission passed on the 14th day of August 1930, and have all papers certified and all proceedings sent to the Baltimore City Court. Frank Klitzner, attorney for claimant." "Notice of appeal in the above entitled cause is hereby accepted on behalf of the State Industrial Accident Commission and service of copy of said appeal is hereby admitted this 13th day of September, 1930. Omar D. Crothers, Commissioner;" and by filing two proposed issues, together with an election that these issues be tried before a jury. On October 21st the employer and insurer filed a motion ne recipiatur as to the transcript of record upon the ground that the action in the Baltimore city court had not been begun within the time prescribed by section 56 of article 101 of the Maryland Code Supp. 1929. This motion was overruled, and that action constitutes the first exception contained in the record.

The question thus presented may be succinctly stated: Under the provisions contained in section 56 or article 101 of the Maryland Code, has the court jurisdiction to review the finding or order of the Industrial Accident Commission in cases where nothing has been filed in the nature of an appeal in the court where the appeal is to be reviewed, within thirty days from the date of the order of the commission, even though it appear that notice of or request for an appeal to that court had been served personally upon one of the commissioners, and that service admitted? The trial court answered this question in the affirmative. The contention of the appellants is that a proper construction of section 56 of article 101 requires the person feeling aggrieved at the action of the commission to take two steps: (1) To commence the proceeding by filing some paper in the court in which it is sought to have the commission's decision reviewed; and (2) that notice of such action be served personally upon a member of the commission within thirty days from the rendition of its order or finding. There can be no question or dispute that section 56, in unambiguous terms, provides that no such appeal shall be entertained unless notice of appeal shall have been served personally upon some member of the commission within thirty days following the rendition of the decision appealed from; and unless it be shown that such notice was served within the time prescribed, the court to which the appeal is taken is without jurisdiction to hear and determine the questions sought to be reviewed. Holland Mfg. Co. v. Thomas, 136 Md. 77, 110 A. 209.

The appellants argue that the notice required to be given to the commission is the second step in the proceedings on appeal, and therefore cannot be taken until after the first step. With the premise admitted that it is a second step, logically the conclusion must follow that if there is a time limit of 30 days within which to take the second step, the first step must, of necessity, be required to be taken within the same time limit. The appellee does not dispute the logic of the result, if the premise is admitted, but denies the soundness of such assumption. The question therefore is: Does the language of section 56 require one feeling aggrieved by the action of the commission to docket a suit, or file some paper equivalent thereto, in the trial court before giving the prescribed notice to the commission? Those portions of section 56 pertinent to this inquiry are: "Any * * * person feeling aggrieved by any decision of the Commission affecting his interests under this Article, may have the same reviewed by a proceeding in the nature of an appeal and initiated in the Circuit Court of the county or in the Common Law Courts of Baltimore City having jurisdiction over the place where the accident occurred or over the person appealing from such decision. * * * No such appeal shall be entertained unless notice of appeal shall have been served personally upon some member of the Commission within thirty days following the rendition of the decision appealed from. An appeal shall not be a stay. * * * In all Court proceedings under or pursuant to this Article, the decision of the Commission shall be prima facie correct and the burden of proof shall be upon the party attacking the same." In construing these provisions the purpose of the whole act must be borne in mind, and such construction be given as will effectuate the intent and spirit of the act, unless that construction is plainly denied by the language used. This is indicated by positive provisions of the statute, where in section 10 it is provided that the commission shall not be bound by the usual common-law or statutory rules of evidence, or by any technical or formal rules of procedure other than those provided in the act; and section 63 provides that the rule which requires statutes in derogation of the common law to be strictly construed shall have no application, but that the act shall be so interpreted and construed as to effectuate its general purpose. Clough & Molloy v. Shilling, 149 Md. 189, at page 193, 131 A. 343; Core Contr. Co. v. Schaeffer, 151 Md. 494, at page 502, 135 A. 318. Courts will adapt themselves to the increased latitude allowed the commission as to procedure. Standard Oil Co. v. Mealey, 147 Md. 252, 127 A. 850.

Section 1 of article 5 of the Code provides: "An appeal may be taken from a court of law or equity by application to the clerk; from the orphans' court by application to the register; from the commissioner of the land office by application to the commissioner; from the county commissioners by application to their clerk, and from a justice of the peace by application to the justice; or by filing a petition with the clerk of the court to which the appeal is made; and upon such application, if made within the time prescribed by law for taking such appeal, the clerk, register, commissioner or justice to whom the same is made shall enter a prayer of appeal upon his docket or minutes of proceedings, and transmit the papers or a transcript of the record, as hereinafter required." This section covers appeals from courts of law and equity, and other courts or bodies, specifically designated therein, empowered to originally determine the questions involved. It provides two methods of taking an appeal, one by application to the court or body from which the appeal is taken, and the other by filing a petition with the clerk of the court to which the appeal is taken. The provisions of this section have no application to appeals from the State Industrial Accident Commission, and are cited only for the purpose of showing the two methods of appeal applicable to a very large proportion of all appeals, only excluding those that are governed by special provisions. Of these two methods, that one which is most commonly, and we might say almost universally, employed, is by making application to the tribunal from which the appeal is taken and a review of whose decision is desired. Whereupon it becomes the duty of the original trial body to make a minute or memorandum of the appeal, and transmit a transcript of the record to the appellate body. This is required to be done, and is done, by the State Industrial Accident Commission in cases of appeal from its findings. If the construction of section 56 of article 101 contended for by the appellants be sustained, it will limit appeals in workmen's compensation cases to the one method least frequently employed (although permitted) in the great majority of cases, namely, by a petition to or docketing a suit in the court to which the appeal is taken; and this even though it is unequivocally required by the provisions of that section that in order to get any benefit from the appeal the appellant must serve personally upon a member of the commission notice of appeal within thirty days from the rendition of the decision appealed from. Upon the prescribed notice to the commission, the procedure followed and necessary to bring the case to trial in the appellate court is precisely the same in cases where there has not been previously docketed a suit in that court as in those cases where that has been done.

But say the appellants, unless the thirty days' limitation for notice to the commission is also a limitation as to time for docketing the suit in the...