Burr v. Maryland State Retirement & Pension System

NAZARIAN, J. Laurie Burr, a former employee of Maryland’s Administrative Office of the Courts, endured a difficult struggle with cancer while continuing to work, mostly from home. On August 27, 2007, she went to the office to meet with her supervisor; her health had improved, although not yet to the point where she had returned fully to work, and she understood the purpose of the meeting was to discuss her schedule and leave and assignments. Instead, she alleged (and, for purposes of this appeal, the Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System (the “Trustees” of the “System”) don’t dispute), that her supervisor reduced the hours on her timesheet for work she had done, retroactively revoked her telework agreement, removed her from an important project she had led, reassigned her to “busywork,” and demanded that she return to work in person before her doctors cleared her. She contended that these unexpected and obviously negative personnel decisions precipitated a sudden decline in her mental health and caused her to become suicidal.

She has never returned to work, and everyone agrees that she is permanently disabled. The question for us is whether she was disabled by an “accident.” When she applied to the System for disability retirement benefits, Ms. Burr argued that the events of the August 27, 2007 meeting were so surprising to her that they ¹⁹⁹ qualified as an “accident,” and thus that she was entitled to an accidental disability retirement allowance under Md.Code (1993, 2009 Repl. Vol.), § 29-109(b) of the State Personnel and Pensions Article (“SP”). The Trustees disagreed and approved an “ordinary” disability retirement.

An Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) and the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County upheld the Trustees’ decision, and Ms. Burr appeals. We hold that personnel decisions, even decisions that are surprising, cannot, as a matter of law, qualify as disabling “accidents,” and we affirm the Trustees’ decision to deny Ms. Burr’s application for accidental disability benefits. I. BACKGROUND Ms. Burr was hired as a Technical Business Analyst for the Maryland State Judiciary’s Administrative Office of the Courts (“the AOC”) in 2001. By all accounts, she was a good and competent employee, and she appears to have had a substantial role in the Judiciary’s evolution toward electronic filing.

The record reveals that she received strong performance reviews, and there is no issue in this case about her job performance, her eligibility to retire, or that she is permanently disabled. The only issue before us is the nature of her disability retirement, and specifically whether the events that caused her disability qualify her for an accidental disability retirement allowance which, if awarded, would yield a higher allowance than the ordinary retirement benefits that the Trustees already awarded her. In October 2006, Ms. Burr was diagnosed with breast cancer. The AOC allowed her to work from home over the course of her treatment, and, as the summer of 2007 came to a close, she finished chemotherapy and contemplated easing into a schedule that would transition her back to working in the office.

Her illness consumed all of her accumulated leave, and she drew both on leave available to her under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) and a Judiciary leave bank. But according to a letter from her supervisor, Charles Moulden, dated August 23, 2007, that she received by certified mail the next day, Ms. Burr had exhausted all available leave, and ²⁰⁰ the Judiciary’s Human Resources Office “directed that [Ms. Burr] return to work fulltime, immediately.” This letter also stated, though, that in light of the “nature and totality of the circumstances,” Ms. Burr was not actually required to come back full time until September 12, 2007. To Ms. Burr, the letter was a “surprise,” but “she did not become psychologically damaged” as a result of reading it. Ms. Burr had planned already to go to the office the following Monday, August 27, to meet with her supervisors, complete her timesheet, and discuss the logistics of her return to work in light of “her medical doctors’ requirements for [a] flex plan.” When she arrived, she had an email waiting from Mr. Moulden saying that he wanted to meet with her and her other supervisor at 1:30 p.m. “to discuss work assignments and leave.” No surprise there.

But the meeting itself went differently than the one-line request might suggest or than Ms. Burr expected. According to Ms. Burr, Mr. Moulden informed her that her telework agreement would be revoked retroactive to August 15, 2007, a decision that contradicted the statement in his letter from four days earlier. Ms. Burr discovered that Mr. Moulden had already completed her timesheet, without seeking her input or consulting her, and credited her with only four hours’ work each day rather than the full eight hours. Mr. Moulden also removed her from the project she had been leading and directed her to begin full-time, in-office “busywork” immediately, “without exception,” and told her that she had exhausted all medical leave.

Ms. Burr felt certain at that time that she had not in fact exhausted her leave and that her doctors would not clear her to return to work under these conditions; in fact, at that point, they had not cleared her to return at all. In an “Employee’s Report of Injury” (the “Injury Report”) dated May 1, 2008, Ms. Burr explained that after the meeting, she suffered a “memory blackout,” and the next thing she remembers is visiting her neighbors that evening. She returned home and determined that she was going to end her life. Instead, she fell asleep, called in sick the next morning, ²⁰¹ and kept a regularly-scheduled appointment with her psychologist, Benna Sherman, that afternoon.

At Dr. Sherman’s urging, Ms. Burr admitted herself to Baltimore-Washington Medical Center, and later was hospitalized at Sheppard Pratt. She never returned to her job with the AOC. On July 2, 2008, Ms. Burr filed a Statement of Disability (the “Statement”), the document that served as her application for disability retirement benefits. In the Statement, she characterized her disability as both “Ordinary” and “Accidental,” and she referred back to the Injury Report in the section of the Statement that called for a description of the “accident.” On its first review, the State Retirement Agency (the “Agency”) determined (in a letter sent to Ms. Burr from a counselor in the Disability Unit on July 10, 2008) that Ms. Burr’s claim was “not compensable as an accidental injury as defined by the Maryland retirement law,” and that her claim for accidental disability retirement benefits would be denied.

On July 23, 2008, the Medical Board to the Agency recommended that she be approved for “ordinary disability due to a psychiatric condition” (emphasis added), but recommended that the Trustees deny her accidental disability claim, and the Trustees adopted that recommendation on August 19, 2008. On December 11, 2008, Ms. Burr accepted the ordinary disability award, but opted to pursue her accidental disability claim. After reviewing the Medical Board’s recommendation and the report of an independent psychiatrist who examined Ms. Burr, the Trustees again denied Ms. Burr’s claim on August 8, 2009. On December 8, 2009, Ms. Burr’s counsel sought a hearing before a judge, and an administrative appeal through the Office of Administrative Hearings followed.

The Trustees filed a motion for a “summary decision” 1 on September 12, 2011, arguing that the events of August 27, 2007, did not constitute an “accident” under SP § 29-109(b)(l). Ms. Burr ²⁰² opposed the motion on September 22, 2011, and sought a summary decision that her injury did arise from an accident, i.e., the “sudden and unusual occurrence” that took place at the meeting. The ALJ held a hearing on October 5, 2011, and issued a Proposed Decision on November 3, 2011, that concluded that the Agency was entitled to judgment—even crediting Ms. Burr’s account of the meeting and the interaction between her and Mr. Moulden, the ALJ decided, the events of the meeting were “general conditions of employment and [did] not fit within any common sense meaning of the term accident.” Ms. Burr filed exceptions to the Proposed Decision and, after a hearing, the Trustees adopted the ALJ’s decision on June 21, 2012. Ms. Burr then filed a Petition for Judicial Review in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County.

The circuit court held a hearing on February 4, 2013, and affirmed the Trustees’ decision in a Memorandum Opinion and Order on May 17, 2013. Ms. Burr filed a timely notice of appeal.

II

DISCUSSION Ms. Burr synthesizes the ultimate question before us well in her brief: 2 “If this Court determines that ‘accident,’ as a matter of law, cannot include a meeting between a supervisor and employee ..., then the ALJ and Circuit Court [decisions] must be affirmed.” We will say it slightly differently, but with the same effect: we affirm the Trustees’ decision because a supervisor’s personnel decisions cannot constitute an “accident” for purposes of determining an employee’s right ²⁰³ to accidental disability benefits. Our decision does not turn on whether Ms. Burr was surprised by or foresaw the decisions her supervisors conveyed to her in the August 27, 2007 meeting—we assume for present purposes that she was totally ambushed and that her supervisors’ decisions wrongly interpreted and applied State personnel rules to her situation. Our holding stems instead from the indisputable fact that a supervisor’s personnel decisions, whatever their character and however they were delivered, are a foreseeable part of a person’s employment with the State, and, therefore, cannot constitute an “accident.” Personnel decisions also are not unexpected occurrences (in any objectively determinable way), nor are they physical events or circumstances that can comprise an “accident.” On appeal, we look through the circuit court’s decision to review that of the Trustees, although here, as a practical matter, there is no difference between the two. See Batson v. Md. Bd. of Physicians, 211 Md.App. 602, 612 , 66 A.3d 50 (2013).

We review that decision de novo to determine whether the Trustees decided correctly that the System was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Eng’g Mgmt. Servs., Inc. v. Md. State Highway Admin., 375 Md. 211, 229 , 825 A.2d 966 (2003). We construe all facts in favor of Ms. Burr as the non-moving party, and we “ ‘independently review the record to determine whether the parties properly generated a dispute of material fact and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’ ” Suder v. Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, LLP, 413 Md. 230, 239 , 992 A.2d 413 (2010) (quoting Haas v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 396 Md. 469, 479 , 914 A.2d 735 (2007) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted)).

And we decide legal questions for ourselves, although “a degree of deference should often be accorded the position of the administrative agency. Thus, an administrative agency’s interpretation and application of the statute which the agency administers should ordinarily be given considerable weight by reviewing courts.” Bd. of Physician Quality Assur. v. Banks, 354 Md. 59, 69 , 729 A.2d 376 (1999) (emphasis added); McCullough v. Wittner, 314 Md. 602, 612 , 552 A.2d ²⁰⁴ 881 (1989) (“The interpretation of a statute by those officials charged with administering the statute is ... entitled to weight.”); Wallace H. Campbell & Co. v. Md. Comm’n on Human Rels., 202 Md.App. 650, 670 , 33 A.3d 1042 (2011) (“Even though an agency’s interpretation of a statute the agency is charged with enforcing is entitled to deference, that deference is not limitless.”). A disabled State employee is entitled to an accidental retirement allowance if she is disabled by an on-the-job accident: (b) [T]he Board of Trustees shall grant an accidental disability retirement allowance to a member if: (1) the member is totally and permanently incapacitated for duty as the natural and proximate result of an accident that occurred in the actual performance of duty at a definite time and place without willful negligence by the member; and (2) the medical board certifies that: (i) the member is mentally or physically incapacitated for the further performance of the normal duties of the member’s position; (ii) the incapacity is likely to be permanent; and (in) the member should be retired. SP § 29-109(b) (emphases added).

Because there is no dispute (for purposes of reviewing the grant of a summary judgment motion, that is) that Ms. Burr was totally and permanently incapacitated as a natural and proximate result of what happened in the meeting of August 27, 2007, this case rises or falls entirely on whether the personnel decisions conveyed to her in that meeting qualify as an “accident.” Ms. Burr argues that the question is one of first impression for Maryland appellate courts and that the accident here, in light of the dictionary definition of the word, consists of the “unforeseen and unexpected” decisions that Mr. Moulden conveyed to her in the August 27 meeting, which caused Ms. Burr serious psychological injury and caused her to begin having suicidal thoughts. She claims that the ALJ erred by requiring ²⁰⁵ that an accident involve “physical violence,” and that the circuit court erred when it imposed a requirement that the employee undergo “some type of strain or exertion.” She argues that Maryland cases compel us to construe “accident” to include the events of this meeting because we have previously permitted recovery for psychological harm without accompanying physical harm. And finally, she cites cases from outside of Maryland that, she claims, support her argument. For its part, the Agency argues that the dictionary definition of “accident” does not include this sort of injury and that none of the cases on which Ms. Burr relies construes an “accident” in a similar disability retirement context.

We start with the familiar principle that “ ‘the cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the legislature.’ ”