Cambridge Manufacturing Co. v. Johnson

Digges, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The record in this case presents two- questions for our determination, both of which arise out of a claim made under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, codified as article 101. The Cambridge Manufacturing Company, one of the appellants, is engaged in the business of manufacturing, mixing, and selling’ poultry and dairy food. The original claimant, Samuel Richard Johnson, now deceased, was employed in this work from September, 1923, to- October 17th, 1928; and at the time of his leaving, and for more- than two years prior thereto^ he had been foreman.- The operation of mixing the feed caused the atmosphere of the room to he impregnated with dnst, which at times was quite thick.

It further appears that in September, 1928, the: -claimant, who had been ailing for abo-ut a month, consulted a physician and was advised that he was suffering from, pulmonary tuberculosis; that he stopped work on October 17th, 1928, and remained ²⁵⁰ disabled until bis death on July 17th, 1929. The claimant asserted that he believed his condition was aggravated by the inhalation of dust in the room in which he worked, and there was medical testimony tending to support him. On November 17th, 1928, the claimant applied for compensation; and in answer to> the inquiry, “Describe how accident occurred,” he said: “By constant inhalation for the past five years of dust from powdered alfalfa meal, chops, fish meal, etc., while mixing poultry food”; that he was thirty-two years of age and married. The defendants, being the employer and the State Accident Fund, insurer, who are the appellants here, asked a hearing before the commission on two issues, namely: “1.

Did the claimant suffer an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment ? 2. When, if at all, did the claimant sustain an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment?” After a hearing, the commission, on February 21st, 1929, passed an order disallowing the claim; and on March 1st, 1929, an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court for Dorchester County, On July 17, 1929, while the appeal was pending, the claimant died. Subsequently, on March loth, 1930, the appellee, widow of the claimant, who had been appointed his administratrix, filed a suggestion of his death and asked that she be permitted to appear as appellant in the proceedings. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, on tbe ground that the claim of the deceased, if he had any, did not survive his death, so as to become a part of his estate.

This motion was overruled, and on the same day the case was presented to the jury on the single issue: “Did Samuel Richard Johnson sustain an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by the Cambridge Manufacturing Company ?” At the close of the testimony the defendants offered a prayer for an instructed verdict in their favor on the ground that there was no evidence legally sufficient to entitle the plaintiff to recover; which prayer was rejected. The answer of the jury on the issue presented was, “Yes”; that is, the jury found, as a ²⁵¹ matter of fact, that the claimant did sustain an accidental injury arising' out of and in the course of his employment by the Cambridge Manufacturing Company. On this finding of the jury, the court reversed the order of the State Industrial Accident Commission. The appeal is prosecuted from that order.

The two questions, then, for our decision are: (1) May an appeal from an order of the commission denying a claim for total disability be prosecuted by the claimant’s administratrix for the benefit of his estate ? (2) Was the ruling’ of the trial court on the defendants’ first prayer, which sought a directed verdict on their behalf on the ground that there was no evidence legally sufficient submitted in the case to entitle the plaintiff to recover, correct ? We will consider these questions in the order named. A general statement of the apparent legislative purpose is helpful in reaching a conclusion on the first question.

If we approach this question in the light of the declared purpose of this legislation in the State of Maryland, as also the general purpose of all such legislation in this country and in England, we are bound to conclude that the purpose was to withdraw from litigation common law actions brought by employees against employers for accidental injuries, growing out of and sustained in the course of the employment, and to substitute in the place of the right of action in such eases certain definite and specified amounts to be paid to the injured party, and to his dependents as defined in the statute, in case the injured party died as a result of the injury within three years from the time of the accident causing the injury. Sound economic thought recognized that it is inevitable that employees engaged in extra-hazardous occupation will be injured or killed, and that the care and support of such persons or their dependents will become a burden upon the state, as representing the people at large, and that such result, flowing from the conduct of extra-hazardous businesses, is a legitimate expense of the business itself and ought to be borne by it in the same manner that the hazard from fire or the ²⁵² replacement of broken or damaged machinery is taken care of. It was also recognized that the common law defenses, resorted to in actions brought by the employee against the employer, of the fellow-servant doctrine, assumption of risk, and contributory negligence, frequently resulted in denying any recovery whatever; while, on the other hand, experience had shown a strong tendency on the part of juries to mulct defendants in heavy damages, sometimes out of all proportion to the actual injury sustained. That the people of the state, at the time of the passage of the present Workmen’s Compensation Act, fully realized the evils of the old system, is shown by the preamble to the original act.

With this in mind, the statute was designed to benefit both parties: the employers, by making it impossible to have exorbitant and unreasonable judgments obtained against them; and the employees, by providing for them definite and certain compensation for bona fid& injuries sustained during their employment, without the danger of being defeated by the application of the hai’d and fast rules of the common law. The cost to the employer of the proper operation of such a system is not onerous, if by the administration of the law its subjects are confined to those provided in the statute and in the manner therein provided. There is an undoubted tendency on the part of commissions and the courts, due to the persistent application of injured persons, to broaden the provisions of the law through administrative or legal interpretations. This, it seems to us, is a real danger to be guarded against, lest the economic benefit sought to' be accomplished by such enactments be practically frustrated by employers being driven to the necessity of employing only those who are physically perfect, thereby excluding entirely competent and efficient persons, who may have some slight ailment or disease, from receiving any employment at all.

This was not the purpose of the Legislature; and if an interpretation be given which is tantamount to health insurance, it will become more and more difficult for employees who have passed middle age, or who ²⁵³ from one canse or another are not perfect physical specimens, to obtain and keep employment. Whom, then, did our act purpose to compensate? Clearly two, and only two, classes of persons: First, the injured party himself; and, second, in case the injury resulted in death, such persons as the act provided are his dependents entitled to receive compensation because of loss of support theretofore rendered them, which loss was occasioned by the injury. In our opinion, it cannot be gathered from this legislation as a whole that it was the intent of the law-makers to enrich persons who were strangers to the injured party and who were not directly affected by his loss of earning capacity.

It is clear that it was never the intention to create an insurance to the injured party, which upon his death would form a part of his estate. Such conclusion is reached from the declared legislative purpose, and an examination of the structure and framework of the act as a whole. This being true, are there any specific provisions contained in the act, or are there any previous decisions of this court, which compel a determination in the case before us contrary to what we believe to have been the general purpose of the Legislature ? There appears to be no case in this court wdiere the question lias been directly passed upon, although it can be easily .seen that its determination is important as an instruction to the commission in the administration of the Workmen’s Compensation Law.

It being a case of first impression, its decision must depend upon the construction of our statute, decisions of other courts being only persuasive to the extent that the reasoning employed is applicable to the specific provisions of the Maryland law. As was stated in Sea Gull Specialty Co. v. Snyder, 151 Md. 78 , 134 A. 133 , 134: “It is, however, true that, in dealing with questions involving the construction of statutes, decisions of other courts of last resort are of little practical value to any greater extent than the reasoning employed may appeal as being sound, because there are nearly as many different statutes dealing with and covering workmen’s compensation as there are states in the Union, and snch decisions as we have are those construing ²⁵⁴ the statute of the particular state wherein the court .is located.” In that case the court quoted from State Accident Fund v. Jacobs’ Admr., 140 Md. 622 , 118 A. 159 , also a compensation case, wherein Chief Judge Boyd, speaking for the court, said: “Courts should be governed by the plain language of the statute, and not by a strained construction making the Legislature say something which it did not say, even if the court was inclined to differ as to the wisdom of the legislation. That is not for the court to determine—its duty is to ascertain what the Legislature said, and, if it had the right to say what it did say, to be governed by it”; and went on to say: “It follows, therefore, that, in determining the question before us, we should be confined to determining the true meaning of the language employed by the Legislature, and not allow the construction to be influenced by what, in our opinion, the Legislature should have said.” The particular section under consideration is section 36, which provides: “Each employee (or in case of death his family or dependents) entitled to receive compensation under this article shall receive the same in accordance with the following schedule and except as in this article otherwise provided, such payment shall be in lieu of any and all rights of action whatsoever against any person whomsoever.” Subsection 1 provides: “Permanent total disability. In case of total disability, adjudged to be permanent, sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of the average weekly wages shall be paid to the employee during the continuance of such total disability, not to exceed a maximum of eighteen dollars per week, * * * unless the employee’s established weekly wages are less than eight dollars per week at the time of the injury, in which event he shall receive compensation in an amount equal to his average weekly wages, but not to exceed a total of $5,000.” Subsection 2 deals with temporary total disability, and provides: “In case of temporary total disability, sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of the average weekly wages shall be paid to the employee during the continuance thereof, but not to exceed a maximum of $18 per week, * * * but in no case to continue more than six years from. ²⁵⁵ the date of the injury or to exceed three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars in the aggregate.” Subsection 3, “Permanent partial disability,” provides: “In case of disability partial in character but permanent in quality, the compensation shall be sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of the average weekly wages, in no case to exceed eighteen dollars per week; * * * but in no case to exceed more than three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, in the aggregate and shall be paid to the employees for the period named in the schedule as follows.” It then goes on and provides for payment for a varying number of weeks for the loss ■of different members of the body, and further provides: “The compensation for the foregoing specific injuries shall be paid in addition to, and consecutively with, the compensation hereinbefore provided for in subsection 2 of this section.

If an employee dies, the right to any compensation payable under this subsection, unpaid at the date of his death, shall survive to and vest in his personal representatives.” Prom the above quotations from the statute it will be seen that, in respect to permanent partial disability, dealt with in subsection 3, the Legislature specifically provided that if an employee, entitled to compensation under the provisions of that subsection, dies prior to the full payment of the award to him, the right to the remainder shall survive to and vest in his personal representatives; while in that class of cases covering permanent total disability and temporary total disability, embraced in subsections 1 and 2, there is no such provision. We cannot read into subsections 1 and 2 the provisions in regard to the survivorship to the personal representatives in case of death of the employee, contained in subsection 3; for to do so would be usurping a legislative function and result in the court saying something that the Legislature has not said, simply because we may be of the opinion that the Legislature should have said it. Holding thus, the question is, if we entirely disregard the provisions of subsection 3, does an award made to an employee under subsection 1, in case of the employee’s death, survive to his personal representative ? It is argued by the appellant that it does not: First, ²⁵⁶ because tbe Legislature iu terms has not so declared; and, second, because the fact that it did so declare in respect to awards under subsection 3 is indicative that a construction which would read that provision into subsection 1 would be violative of the legislative intent.

In the case of Adleman v. Ocean Accident Corp., 130 Md. 572 , 101 A. 529, 531 , the question to be decided was whether or not a dependent sister, who had been awarded compensation upon the death of her brother, the injured party, would lose the benefit of such award upon her marriage. It was argued by the insurance company that because the Compensation Law contains a provision that an award made to the widow of the deceased injured party should cease upon her remarriage, such provision was indicative of the legislative intent to the effect that the marriage of any female dependent would work a cessation of the award as to her. The court rejected that contention, for the simple yet controlling reason that the statute was silent as to the effect which marriage of any dependent, other than the widow of the injured party, would have upon the compensation awarded; the court there saying: “Section 42 provides that: ‘In ease of the remarriage of a dependent widow of a deceased employee without dependent children, all compensation under this act shall cease/ etc. But there is no such provision in reference to other dependents mentioned in the act, and it is reasonable to conclude that if the Legislature, while dealing with the subject of abatement of compensation, had intended