Victor v. Proctor & Gamble Mfg. Co.

• Citation: 569 A.2d 697,318 Md. 624
• Decision Date: 01 September 1989
• Docket Number: No. 92,92
• Parties: Edward VICTOR v. PROCTOR & GAMBLE MANUFACTURING COMPANY. ,
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

Page 624

318 Md. 624

569 A.2d 697

Edward VICTOR v. PROCTOR & GAMBLE MANUFACTURING COMPANY.

No. 92, Sept. Term, 1989.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 15, 1990.

Herbert Burgunder, Jr. and John S. Hashim, Jr. (Horn, Bennett & Redmond, P.A., all on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

Robert C. Erlandson (E. Johanna Gibbon, Lord & Whip, P.A., all on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before MURPHY, ELDRIDGE, COLE, RODOWSKY and McAULIFFE, JJ., CHARLES E. ORTH, Jr., Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland (Retired, Specially Assigned) and JOHN J. GARRITY, Judge of the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland (Specially Assigned).

CHARLES E. ORTH, Jr., Judge, Specially Assigned.

Edward Victor sustained a disability resulting from an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by Proctor & Gamble Manufacturing Company. He was entitled to compensation as prescribed by the Workers' Compensation Act, Maryland Code (1957, 1985 Repl.Vol., 1989 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101. ¹ Victor was awarded compensation for temporary total disability, and, later, was granted a supplemental award for permanent partial disability. Shortly before the award for permanent partial disability, at age 62 years and physically able to work, he voluntarily retired from his employment at Proctor & Gamble, whereupon he received $250,000 under a profit-sharing plan and his regular social security benefits. His physical ability to work continued until 29 December 1988 when his work-related condition worsened, causing him to be temporarily totally disabled. Upon Victor's petition, the Workers' Compensation Commission reopened the case and, upon hearing, awarded temporary total disability from 29 December 1988 "and continuing." It ordered, however, that the payment of the award be suspended pending any appeal

[b]ecause this case involves the novel issue of whether temporary total benefits, which are awarded until maximum medical improvement is reached, are unavailable to a claimant who has voluntarily retired.... ²

Proctor & Gamble appealed to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City which reversed the Commission. The circuit court judge jettisoned the award of temporary total disability granted by the Commission on his determination that "the purpose of Art. 101, § 36(2) is to compensate a worker for wages he has lost due to injury." He explained:

The Worker's Compensation statute is not designed to provide extra retirement benefits to a claimant who has voluntarily removed himself from the work force. In this case, Claimant voluntarily retired in 1986 and subsequent to that time petitioned to reopen due to worsening of condition of his knee. It is beyond dispute that had claimant still been working, he would have received temporary total benefits for the period of time it took for him to heal or for the time he was wholly disabled and unable to work. Because Claimant retired, however, he was not going to be able to work or to earn wages even after his injury had healed. Due to his retirement, he had no expectation of receiving wages upon a return to work. Therefore, this Court concludes that a claimant who has voluntarily retired is not entitled to temporary total disability after retirement.

Victor noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals and prayed that this Court issue a writ of certiorari. We certified the case to us before decision by the intermediate appellate court. The petition for certiorari posed the question

whether in a worker's compensation case a claimant who has voluntarily retired is entitled to temporary total disability benefits after retirement.

We have not addressed this issue before, and, to resolve it, we rely on the language of the statute in the context of the goals and objectives it seeks to achieve. Subsequent Injury Fund v. Teneyck, 317 Md. 626, ----, 566 A.2d 94 (1989); Kaczorowski v. City of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 513-516, 525 A.2d 628 (1987).

The purpose of the Workers' Compensation Act is set out in fine detail in the Preamble to Acts 1914, ch. 800. We have recognized those legislative declarations in the many cases concerning the Act which have come before us.

The Workmen's Compensation Act was passed to promote the general welfare of the State and to prevent the State and its taxpayers from having to care for injured workmen and their dependents, when under the law as it previously existed, such workmen could not recover damages for their injuries.

Paul v. Glidden Co., 184 Md. 114, 119, 39 A.2d 544 (1944).

[T]he overall purpose of the Act ... is to protect workers and their families from hardships inflicted by work-related injuries by providing workers with compensation for loss of earning capacity resulting from accidental injury arising out of and in the course of employment.

Howard Co. Ass'n, Retard. Cit. v. Walls, 288 Md. 526, 531, 418 A.2d 1210 (1980). See Unsatisfied Claim Bd. v. Salvo, 231 Md. 262, 264, 189 A.2d 638 (1963); Egeberg v. Md. Steel Products Co., 190 Md. 374, 379, 58 A.2d 684 (1948). The Act shall be so interpreted and construed as to effectuate its general purpose. Art. 101, § 63; Wiley Mfg. Co. v. Wilson, 280 Md. 200, 217, 373 A.2d 613 (1977). And in our consideration of the propriety of the action of the Commission, we are mindful that the Commission, not bound by "the usual common law or statutory rules of evidence or by any technical or formal rules of procedure," other than provided by the Act, is "to ascertain the substantial rights of the parties and to carry out justly the spirit of this article." Art. 101, § 11. Furthermore, in any proceeding for the enforcement of a claim for compensation under the Act, there is, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary, a presumption by legislative command that the claim comes within the provisions of the Act. Art. 101, § 64(a). The short of it is that the Act

should be construed as liberally in favor of injured employees as its provisions will permit in order to effectuate its benevolent purposes. Any uncertainty in the law should be resolved in favor of the claimant.

Walls, 288 Md. at 530, 418 A.2d 1210.

It is clear on the face of the Act that entitlement to compensation is based on an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment, generally without regard to fault, which injury results in the employee's disability or death. Art. 101, § 15 (see note 1, supra ). Whether the injury be permanent and total, § 36(1), or temporary and total, § 36(2), or permanent and partial, § 36(3), or temporary and partial, § 36(5), it is the "disability" arising from the injury that calls for the compensation and benefits. Compensation and benefits are referenced to disability throughout the Act. This is so not only in § 15 prescribing the duties of employers and in § 36 establishing amounts of compensation for the categories of injuries, but, for example, in §§ 22 and 23 (disability from occupational disease); § 25A (occupational deafness); § 26 (duty of employee and employer to report disability from occupational disease); § 32 (agreements between railroads and employees for payment of compensation) § 35 (compensation to prisoners); § 39 (application for compensation); § 40(b) (readjustment of compensation upon aggravation of disability). Section 49A, concerning lump sum payments, speaks in terms of "disability benefits." The question is what the legislature intended by the word "disability."

Although "disability" with respect to an injury arising from an industrial accident is not defined in the Act, in the light of the legislative and judicial pronouncements of the purposes of the Act, the Act's mandate as to how it shall be interpreted and construed, the statutory declaration with respect to the application of the Act's provisions, and the legislature's adoption of certain presumptions in any proceeding for enforcement of a claim for compensation, we have related "disability" to "earning capacity." In Bethlehem-Sparrows Point Shipyard v. Damasiewicz, 187 Md. 474, 480, 50 A.2d 799 (1947), we said flatly:

The general purpose of the Workmen's Compensation Act is to provide compensation for loss of earning capacity resulting from accidental injuries sustained in industrial employment (emphasis added).

To like effect is Queen v. Queen, 308 Md. 574, 586, 521 A.2d 320 (1987); Queen v. Agger, 287 Md. 342, 343, 412 A.2d 733 (1980); Miller v. McGraw Co., 184 Md. 529, 540, 42 A.2d 237 (1945); Paul v. Glidden Co., 184 Md. 114-119, 39 A.2d 544 (1944). See Cox v. American Store Equipment Corporation, 283 F.Supp. 390, 394 (D.Md.1968). As early as 1916 the then State Industrial Accident Commission observed that "[t]he primary purpose of the Compensation Act seems to be to provide compensation for loss of earning power." 1 L.J. Harshman, Maryland Workmen's Compensation Cases, reporting Claim No. 481, James C. Leonard, employee, Cambridge Mfg. Co., employer, Fidelity & Casualty Co. of N.Y., insurer (emphasis added). With reference to occupational diseases, the legislature has defined "disablement" as

the event of an employee's becoming actually incapacitated, either partially or totally, because of an occupational disease, from performing his work in the last occupation in which exposed to the hazards of such disease....

Art. 101, § 67(15). It then defined "disability" as "the state of being so incapacitated." ³ Id. In Miller v. Western Electric Co., 310 Md. 173, 528 A.2d 486 (1987), a majority of the Court held that "one who claims compensation for permanent partial disability produced by an occupational disease need not show actual wage loss as a prerequisite to recovery." At 187, 528 A.2d 486. Adkins, J., speaking for the Court, declared: "Actual incapacity from employment (whether total or partial) [and, we think, whether permanent or temporary] is the test in occupational disease cases...." Id. We stated: "That a claimant's wages have not diminished or have increased...