Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Bd. v. Salvo

• Decision Date: 04 April 1963
• Docket Number: No. 279,279
• Citation: 231 Md. 262,189 A.2d 638,7 A.L.R.3d 832
• Parties: , 7 A.L.R.3d 832 UNSATISFIED CLAIM AND JUDGMENT FUND BOARD v. Joseph S. SALVO, to own use and use of Merchants Mutual Ins. Co.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 262

231 Md. 262

189 A.2d 638, 7 A.L.R.3d 832

UNSATISFIED CLAIM AND JUDGMENT FUND BOARD v. Joseph S. SALVO, to own use and use of Merchants Mutual Ins. Co.

No. 279.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 4, 1963.

William C. Higinbothom, Baltimore (Paul M. Higinbothom, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

Gould Gibbons, Baltimore (Dickerson, Nice & Sokol and Max Sokol, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, PRESCOTT, HORNEY, and SYBERT, JJ.

HENDERSON, Judge.

This appeal is from an order directing payment by the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund of $6,000, less $100, plus interest and costs, to the appellees. The case was submitted on an agreed statement of fact in the court below, and presents a narrow question of construction. On July 19, 1959, Joseph A. Salvo, a taxi driver for the Yellow Cab Company, was injured in a collision with an automobile driven by an uninsured motorist. Salvo was awarded workmen's compensation in the total amount of $3,378.53, and he and the insurance carrier then sued the uninsured motorist and obtained judgment in the amount of $6,000. The appellant contends that, by a proper construction of the statute, the compensation paid by the insurance carrier should have been deducted from the judgment by the court below.

Code (1957), Art. 66 1/2, Sec. 162(b), (as enacted by Ch. 836, Acts of 1957), covers the matter of deductions from a judgment. We had occasion to construe Sec. 162(a) of the Act in Simpler v. State for Use of Boyd, 223 Md. 456, 165 A.2d 464, and to discuss the history of the Act, but that case is not in point here. Sec. 162(b) lists as proper deductions, '(1) One hundred dollars ($100.00); (2) All amounts that the applicant has received or, in the opinion of the court, is likely to receive from any source, in or toward payment of the judgment; (3) All amounts that the applicant has received or, in the opinion of the court, is likely to receive, in or toward payment of a judgment or claim against any person against whom the applicant has or had a cause of action for damages for bodily injury or death or damage to property, arising out of the same accident; * * *.' A fourth category, of amounts received under a policy indemnifying against collision damages was added by Ch. 439, Acts of 1961, not here applicable.

Subsection (d) provides: 'Notwithstanding the provisions of any workmen's compensation or similar law to the contrary, neither the employer of an injured person or decedent, nor the insurer of such employer, shall be entitled to a lien on payment from the fund where the amount of such payment has been reduced by the amount of benefits paid or to be paid pursuant to any workmen's compensation or similar law, nor shall such benefits be reduced because of such reduced payment from the fund.'

The appellant argues that subsections (2) and (3), of Section 162(b), import that all amounts recovered from any source must be deducted from the judgment. Of course, this is not literally true. An amount recovered on a workmen's compensation claim is not received 'in or toward payment of the judgment', on the contrary, the Compensation Act, Code (1957), Art. 101, Sec. 58, expressly confers a right of subrogation on the insurance carrier, to sue and recover from a negligent third person. Likewise, a workmen's compensation claim is not based on 'a cause of action for damages * * * arising out of the same accident.' It requires no citation of authority to state that the Compensation Act was designed to substitute an award thereunder, without regard to...