Board of Trustees of Fire & Police Employees Retirement System v. Kielczewski

ROBERT M. BELL, Judge. The Board of Trustees of the Fire and Police Employees Retirement System of the City of Baltimore City, appellant, appeals from a judgment of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. That court reversed the decision of a hearing examiner, finding appellee, Ronald J. Kielczewski, entitled to an ordinary disability, as opposed to a special disability, retirement. Two questions are presented for our resolution: 1.

Did the lower court err in construing the Special Disability retirement benefit so that the applicant did not have to prove a physical incapacity? 2. Did the lower court err in reversing the Claims Examiner’s factual conclusion that the applicant had not proven that his emotional disability was a result of an injury arising out of and in the course of the actual performance of duty? We answer the first question in the affirmative and so we reverse. That determination is dispositive of the appeal, rendering it unnecessary that we consider the second question. ⁵⁸³ Neither the facts surrounding appellant’s job-related physical injury, nor the hearing examiner’s factual determination concerning the nature of appellant’s disability is an issue on this appeal.

The sole issue which we must resolve is the propriety of the trial court’s finding that, as a matter of law, proof of a physical incapacity is not a prerequisite to an award of special disability retirement benefits. Therefore, it is the procedural, rather than the factual, posture of the case on appeal that is most relevant. As a result, we will not set out the facts in any detail. It is sufficient to note that appellant, a 15 year veteran of the Fire Department, received an injury to his right eye in an explosion on May 6, 1980, while on duty fighting a car fire.

After the accident, the effect of which was the loss of vision in the injured eye, appellant’s emotional and mental state deteriorated. Appellee filed a claim with the Fire And Police Employees Retirement System of Baltimore for special disability retirement benefits pursuant to Baltimore City Code, art. 22, § 34(e). The basis of his claim, which he sought to establish at a hearing before a hearing examiner, was that his unfitness for the further performance of his duties as a firefighter was caused by both a physical disability and a mental one, each of which arose as a result of his physical injury of May 6, 1980. The reports of the physicians who examined him, however, while supportive of his claim of mental incapacity, tended to establish that he was not physically unfit at all.

All of the physicians, including appellee’s, agreed that appellee was mentally incapacitated; two of the physicians, namely the Fire Department’s chief physician and the Fire Department’s expert physician, both opined that appellee was physically fit for the further performance of his duties as a fireman. The hearing examiner found that appellee’s incapacity was due to his mental disability, rather than a physical one. 1 Then, construing the ⁵⁸⁴ retirement benefit scheme to require the establishment of a physical incapacity as a prerequisite to the award of special disability retirement benefits, a burden he found appellee had not met, the hearing examiner awarded appellee ordinary disability retirement benefits. Appellee successfully appealed the decision to the circuit court. In its Opinion and Order Reversing the Board of Trustees of the Fire And Police Employees Retirement System of the City of Baltimore, the trial court ruled “[a]s a matter of law, ... if claimant’s incapacitation is, within reasonable medical certainty, a consequence of his on-the-job injury, that is, causally related thereto, and he is otherwise Article 22 qualified, he is entitled to the special retirement benefit even if the incapacity is purely ‘mental.’ ” The reasoning underlying the court’s conclusion is reflected in the following discussion: There is no clear resolution of [the question whether proof of physical incapacity is required for special disability benefits] to be discerned in the literal text of the Ordinance.

While the language speaks of “physical incapacity" in pertinent places, nowhere in the law is there a clearly stated requirement that the incapacity be physical. For example § 88(1) requires a finding, not whether there is a “physical incapacity”; but whether the physical incapacity resulted from an on-the-job injury. It is entirely logical to conclude that the injury to which reference is made is the same injury to which reference is made in the immediately preceding provision requiring an initial finding, sine qua non, that there has been “an injury or illness of such a nature as to preclude ... further performance ____” ⁵⁸⁵ In other words, it can reasonably be concluded that the insertion of the word “physical” was not a conscious qualifier, but rather a descriptive adjective appropriate to the context. At best from the favored appellate perspective of the System as appellee, it is ambiguous and, as a matter of law, when construing statutes of such beneficial purpose, this Court is obliged to interpret it favorably to its purpose.

Howard Co. Ass’n Retired Citizens, Inc. v. Walls, 288 Md. 526, 530 [ 418 A.2d 1210 ] (1980); Coates [Coats] & Clark’s Sales v. Stewart, 39 Md.App. 10, 16-17 [ 383 A.2d 67 ] (1978) (construing the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Md.Code Ann. Art. 101.) (Emphasis in the original) The court reinforced its conclusion by making three “supplementary observations”: (1) the failure of the Ordinance to distinguish between physical injury and mental injury; (2) its inability to appreciate, “given the obvious purpose of the Ordinance”, any legislative purpose to be served by a “physical against mental” distinction; (3) “that on-the-job injuries, in the generic sense, can be occasioned by either physical or mental trauma or illness and that either can produce mental or physical, or a combination thereof, sequellae.” 2 Appellant’s challenge of the trial court’s interpretation of the statutory scheme relies heavily upon the interpretation of the pertinent provisions of the Retirement Systems ordinance as they existed prior to the amendment which resulted in the ordinance as it is presently constituted. Its argument proceeds thusly: Prior to its amendment, the ordinance denied to the Board of Trustees authority to grant a special disability retirement to a member who was mentally, as opposed to physically, disabled. The 1979 ⁵⁸⁶ amendment, rather than effecting a substantive change in the ordinance, merely transferred the factfinding function which the Board of Trustees formerly had to a panel of hearing examiners and rendered unnecessary the function previously performed by the Medical Board, i.e., certifying an applicant as incapacitated or not incapacitated for the further performance of the duties of his office.

Since the only changes effected by the 1979 amendment were procedural, the interpretation of the present ordinance is the same as that given its predecessor. Implicit in this position is the additional argument that the plain language of the pertinent sections of the Retirement Systems ordinance, when they are considered together, evince a clear intent on the part of the Baltimore City Council, that an applicant’s establishment of a physical incapacitation is a necessary prerequisite to an award of special disability retirement benefits. Appellee also views the pre-1979 ordinance, particularly § 34(e), as important to the interpretation of the present ordinance. He finds particularly significant the exclusion, from the present version of § 34(e), of a qualifier for incapacitation that was included in the former version.

Thus, he argues, “the elimination of the qualifier ‘physically’ in the July, 1979 amendment is a clear expression of the intent of the Mayor and City Council to withdraw this requirement.” Appellee also finds comfort in the teaching of Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Hackley, 300 Md. 277, 289 , 477 A.2d 1174 (1984), that “the level of incapacity necessary to sustain a claim for disability benefits is the same for purposes of ‘[ordinary disability retirement and special disability retirement]’ ”. Relying upon it, appellee rejects appellant’s reliance upon §§ 34(c) and (e) as describing different requirements for ordinary and special disability retirement benefits. In his view, ordinary disability retirement benefits and special disability retirement benefits may not be distinguished on the basis of the kind, as opposed to the level, of disability; rather the only distinction is whether the disability arose in the line of duty. ⁵⁸⁷ Appellee also rejects appellant’s reliance upon language in § 33(1) to support its interpretation. He, like the trial court, believes that “reading the provisions of Section 34 together to construct a reasonable and logical result requires a determination that the insertion [in § 33(1) ] of the word ‘physically’ was not a conscious qualifier, but rather a descriptive adjective appropriate to the context.” He concludes that “since ‘incapacity’ denotes a total loss of ability, once a claims examiner makes a finding of incapacity, the decision whether to award Section 34(c) or Section 34(e) benefits depends solely upon whether the claimant was incapacitated by a line-of-duty injury.” The determination whether the lower court properly construed the pertinent sections of the disability retirement benefits ordinance not only requires that we review those provisions as presently constituted and compare them with those which they replaced, but that we do so in light of the well-established principles of statutory construction.

Those principles, which both parties acknowledge apply, were set forth in Hackley: ⁵⁸⁸ 300 Md. at 283 , 477 A.2d 1174 . See also Ford Motor Land Dev. v. Comptroller, 68 Md.App. 342, 346-47 , 511 A.2d 578 , cert. denied, Comptroller v. Ford Motor Land Development, 307 Md. 596 , 516 A.2d 567 (1986). Supplementary of, and in addition to, those identified in Hackley are the following canons of statutory construction. The ascertainment of the intent of the legislature requires a court to consider the purpose or objective of the enactment.

See Kaczorowski v. City of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 513-16 , 525 A.2d 628 (1987). This is true because “even where [the] language [of a particular provision or section] appears to be clear and unambiguous, it is necessary to examine that provision or section in its context.” Comptroller v. John C. Louis Co., 285 Md. 527, 538 , 404 A.2d 1045 (1979). Furthermore, statutes dealing with the same subject matter should, if possible, be read together and harmonized, consistent with the statutes’ object and scope. Kaczorowski, 309 Md. at 511 , 525 A.2d 628 ; Scott v. State, 297 Md. 235, 245-46 , 465 A.2d 1126 (1983); Holy Cross Hosp. v. Maryland Empl.

Sec. Administration, 288 Md. 685, 698 , 421 A.2d 944 (1980). Finally, a construction which leads to unreasonable and illogical results or which is inconsistent both with common sense and the purpose of the statute should be shunned. Erwin & Shafer, Inc. v. Pabst Brewing Co., 304 Md. 302, 811 , 498 A.2d 1188 (1985); Blandon v. State, 304 Md. 316, 319 , 498 A.2d 1195 (1985). ⁵⁸⁷ The cardinal rule of statutory construction is to ascertain and carry out the real legislative intent. In determining that intent, the Court considers the language of an enactment in its natural and ordinary signification.

A corollary to this rule is that if there is no ambiguity or obscurity in the language of the statute, there is usually no need to look elsewhere to ascertain the intent of the General Assembly. Further, a court may not insert or omit words to make a statute express an intention not evidenced in its original form. Moreover, the legislative body is presumed to have had, and enacted with respect to, full knowledge and information as to prior and existing law and legislation on the subject of the statute and the policy of the prior law. Finally, absent a clear indication to the contrary, a statute, if reasonably possible, is to be read so that no word, clause, sentence, or phrase is rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless, or nugatory. ⁵⁸⁸ The pertinent provisions of the Disability Retirement Benefit ordinance are Baltimore City Code art. 22, §§ 33(1) and 34(c) and (e).

After their amendment, effective July Í, 1979, they provided: 33. Administration. (1) Panel of Hearing Examiners. * * * tfc s¡c # Any ordinary disability or special disability claimant must make proper application to the Panel of Hearing Examiners, which application shall include a medical certification of his disability and all supporting medical documentation, on a form prescribed by the Panel of Hearing ⁵⁸⁹ Examiners, wherein the member shall state he has suffered a disability and that such disability prevents him from further performance of the duties of his job classification in the employ of Baltimore City. If the claim is for a special disability benefit, he shall in addition, state that such physical incapacity was the result of an injury arising out of and in the course of the actual performance of his