Bradley v. Construction Labor Contractors

WILNER, J. Before us is an action for judicial review of an order of the Workers’ Compensation Commission denying appellant’s claim for compensation on jurisdictional grounds. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County, concluding that the petition for judicial review was untimely, dismissed it. We shall vacate the judgment of the Circuit Court and remand for further proceedings. ⁶⁶ BACKGROUND Appellant is a carpenter who was a resident of Tennessee. In July 2010, he was employed by Innovated Construction LLC (Innovated), a Kentucky company, to come to Maryland to do work at a Sam’s Club facility in Baltimore County.

He claimed that, later that month, he became employed by Construction Labor Contractors (CLC). In August 2010, he was injured when a Sam’s Club employee operating a forklift struck him. Appellant filed a claim with the Maryland Worker’s Compensation Commission against Innovated, CLC, Rand Construction Company, and the Maryland Uninsured Employers Fund. The claim was contested, as to whether appellant was a “covered employee” and as to who was appellant’s employer for purposes of the Workers’ Compensation law.

Neither the claim nor any of the initial responses to it have been included in the record, so the precise articulation of those issues, as first presented to the Commission, is unclear. In an order dated December 8, 2010, the Commission, through Commissioner Macleay, concluded that Innovated was the correct employer but that, because appellant was a Tennessee resident and Innovated was a Kentucky company, the Maryland Commission had no jurisdiction, and, for that reason, the claim was disallowed. Thus began the saga that followed. The Workers’ Compensation Law provides two options, other than acquiescence, when a party is aggrieved by a Commission decision.

Md.Code § 9-726(a) of the Labor and Employment Article (LE) permits a party, within 15 days after the decision, to file with the Commission a written motion for a rehearing. Alternatively, LE § 9-737 permits an aggrieved party, within 30 days after the mailing of the decision, to file an action for judicial review in accordance with the Rules in Title 7 of the Maryland Rules. 1 Appellant chose ⁶⁷ the first option. On December 23, 2010, he filed a request for rehearing, complaining that Commissioner Macleay had not properly applied the applicable statute (LE § 9-203(b)(l)) in dismissing his claim because Innovated had no workers’ compensation insurance applicable to injuries sustained in Maryland. 2 On January 11, 2011, Commissioner Macleay filed a memorandum stating that, following review of the request, the Commission had decided to schedule the matter for a rehearing, and, on February 8,2011, the Commission sent notice that the rehearing would be held on April 13, 2011. On April 7, however, upon a joint request, a continuance was granted.

The reason stated for the requested continuance was that the existence, vel non, of workers’ compensation insurance applicable to injuries occurring in Maryland may resolve the claim and, in that regard, Auto Owners Mutual Insurance Company (Auto Owners), Innovated’s workers’ compensation insurer, was being impleaded as a party. On July 7, 2011, however, before the rehearing was rescheduled, Commissioner Macleay issued an order noting the requested rehearing but ordering the denial of appellant’s claim. No reasons were given in the order and no explanation for it appears in the record. It was simply a one-sentence denial. ⁶⁸ At that point, appellant could have filed a petition for judicial review, but he did not do so.

Instead, on July 22, 2011, he filed with Commissioner Macleay another request for rehearing. As he had done in his initial request for rehearing, he argued that the core issue was whether, under LE § 9-203(b)(1), workers’ compensation was available to him for injuries suffered in Maryland and, in that regard, stated that he had filed a claim with Auto Owners to determine that issue but had not yet received a response. He conceded that, if there was coverage for an accident occurring in Maryland, he could file a claim in either Tennessee or Kentucky and, in that event, the Maryland Commission would have no jurisdiction but, if not, he was entitled to file a claim in Maryland. Dismissal of his Maryland claim, he contended, was premature, and he again requested a hearing.

Again, he had some temporary success. On January 19, 2012, the Commission issued a notice of rehearing scheduled for February 28, 2012, and a hearing was, in fact, held that day, apparently before Commissioner Vincent. It came to no avail, however, for, on March 1, 2012, Commissioner Vincent issued a brief order affirming the order of December 8, 2010. No reasons were given.

The argument made by the three alleged employers was that the order of December 8, 2010 had become final when no petition for judicial review was timely filed. There is a document in the Commission record, shown as received by the Commission on July 25, 2011, from Auto Owners evidencing workers’ compensation insurance for Innovated covering injuries sustained in Kentucky and 23 other States, but not Maryland. No mention was made of that document in Commissioner Vincent’s order, but it certainly suggests that the order was erroneous. On March 16, 2012, appellant filed a pro se petition for judicial review of the December 8, 2010, December 23, 2010, July 7, 2011, and March 1, 2012 Commission decisions.

Innovated, along with the impleaded Auto Owners, filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that (1) the Commission had no jurisdiction to further review its order of December 8, 2010, which had become final when no timely petition for judicial ⁶⁹ review was filed following the July 7, 2011 order, and (2) the petition for judicial review was untimely. CLC, Rand Construction Co., and their insurers joined in that motion. 3 In November 2012, Innovated and Auto Owners formally withdrew their motion. Nonetheless, a hearing proceeded on the motion in December 2012 before Judge Patrick Cavanaugh at the instance of the other employers and insurers who had joined in the motion, and, on December 13, 2012, Judge Cavanaugh granted the motion. The order granting the motion did not mention Innovated or Auto Owners but treated the order as applying only to the other employers and insurers.

Appellant filed an appeal. On February 19, 2013, Judge Cavanaugh, noting that the “line” by Innovated and Auto Owners withdrawing their motion was not in the file when he granted the motion, struck the order, whereupon this Court dismissed the appeal as moot — there then being no judgment in the case. To put the wobbly train back on the track, CLC and Hartford, its insurer, filed a motion to revise Judge Cavanaugh’s order striking the order granting the motion for summary judgment, and Innovated and Auto Owners refiled their motion for summary judgment. All of that came before Judge John Fader, Judge Cavanaugh having retired.

The trek through the Circuit Court came to an end on October 8, 2014, when Judge Fader dismissed the petition on the ground that it had not been timely filed. He concluded that the 30-day period allowed for the filing of a judicial review action commenced on July 7, 2011, when, in response to the first request for rehearing, Commissioner Macleay affirmed the denial of the claim, and that that period cannot be extended by the filing of another request for rehearing. That is the issue now before us. DISCUSSION The judgment under review is the order dismissing the petition as untimely.

Whether the court was right or wrong is ⁷⁰ a pure issue of law, of statutory construction. No discretion is involved. The standard of review is whether the court was legally correct in its conclusion; no facts bearing on that decision were in dispute. Woznicki v. GEICO, 443 Md. 93, 108 , 115 A.3d 152, 161 (2015).

Appellant’s position — that the 30-day period for filing a petition for judicial review did not commence until the mailing of Commissioner Vincent’s order of March 1, 2012 — rests on his reading of LE § 9-726, dealing with rehearings before the Commission. Several provisions of that section are relevant. Section 9-726(a) permits a party to file a motion for rehearing within 15 days after the “date of a decision by the Commission.” Subsection (d) contains three relevant provisions. First, it commands that, even if an “appeal” — i.e., a petition for judicial review — is pending, the Commission shall promptly rule on the motion.

Second, it provides that the Commission may decide a motion for rehearing without granting a hearing on the motion. Third, it permits the Commission to grant a motion for rehearing only on grounds of error of law or newly discovered evidence. Section 9-726(e) provides that “[i]f the Commission grants a motion for rehearing, the Commission promptly shall hold the rehearing and pass an appropriate order” even if an action for judicial review sought by another party is pending. Finally, for our purposes, section (f) provides that, if a party files a motion for rehearing, the time for filing an action for judicial review starts on “the date on which the Commission mails notice of the denial of the motion for a rehearing” or, if the Commission grants the motion, “the date on which the Commission mails notice of an order under subsection (e) ...” 4 Appellant views § 9-726(e) as mandatory — if the Commission grants a motion for rehearing, which it does not have to do but which he claims it did