In the Matter of Bernard L. Collins

In the Matter of Bernard L. Collins, No. 49, September Term, 2019. Opinion by Biran, J. MARYLAND WORKERS’ COMPENSATION ACT – SETTLEMENT AND RELEASE – DEPENDENT’S CLAIM FOR DEATH BENEFITS - The Court of Appeals held that, under the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act (the “Act”), Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. (“LE”) § 9-722(a) (LexisNexis 1991, 2016 Repl. Vol.), a dependent of a covered employee may settle the dependent’s future claim for death benefits under the Act while the employee is still living.

An employee does not have the power to release his or her dependents’ independent claims for death benefits. Rather, a dependent must be a party to any settlement agreement that purports to release the dependent’s claim for death benefits in order for the release to be enforceable against the dependent. Id. § 9-722(d)(1). The State Workers’ Compensation Commission’s approval of a settlement agreement that purports to release dependents’ future claims for death benefits does not render the release enforceable against a dependent who is not a party to the agreement.

The Court of Appeals also held that an employee’s settlement of the employee’s claims for benefits related to an accidental personal injury or occupational disease does not extinguish his or her surviving dependents’ claims for death benefits. A dependent’s claim for death benefits under the Act, although based on an employee’s compensable injury or disease, is independent of the employee’s claim for benefits. The Act does not include any language suggesting that the employee must not have settled his or her claim for benefits relating to a compensable injury or disease in order for a dependent to retain a viable claim for death benefits based on the same injury or disease. Reading such a requirement into the Act would be inconsistent with the requirement that the Act be construed as liberally as possible in favor of employees and their families to effectuate the Act’s benevolent purposes.

Circuit Court for Calvert County Case No. C-04-CV-17-000175 Argued: February 10, 2020 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 49 September Term, 2019 Case No. 419686V Argued 1/7/19 IN THE MATTER OF BERNARD L. COLLINS Barbera, C.J. McDonald Watts Hotten Getty Booth Biran, JJ. Opinion by Biran, J. Filed: May 26, 2020 Pursuant to Maryland Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (§§ 10-1601 et seq. of the State Government Article) this document is authentic. Suzanne Johnson 2020-05-26 12:39-04:00 Suzanne C. Johnson, Clerk A fundamental premise of the law of contracts is that a person who is not a party to a contract is not bound to its terms. See, e.g., EEOC v. Waffle House, Inc., 534 U.S. 279, 294 (2002) (“It goes without saying that a contract cannot bind a nonparty.”).

This case tests that proposition in the context of an employee’s settlement of claims under the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act (the “Act”), Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. (“LE”), Title 9 (LexisNexis 1991, 2016 Repl. Vol.). Respondent Peggy Collins, the widow of firefighter Bernard Collins, filed a dependent’s claim for death benefits under the Act against her late husband’s former employer, the Huntingtown Volunteer Fire Department (the “Department”), and its insurers, Chesapeake Employers’ Insurance Company (“Chesapeake”) and Selective Insurance Company of America (“Selective”), who collectively are the Petitioners in this case.

Mrs. Collins claimed that her husband’s death was due to heart disease he had developed while working as a firefighter for the Department. Two years before he died, Mr. Collins settled claims he had brought under the Act against Petitioners for disability benefits related to his heart disease. In the parties’ settlement agreement, Mr. Collins purported to release Petitioners from any and all claims that Mr. Collins, his personal representative, dependents, spouse, children, and other potential beneficiaries might then or could later have “of whatsoever kind” which might arise under the Act from Mr. Collins’s disability. In exchange for Mr. Collins’s release, Petitioners agreed to make various payments to Mr. Collins upon approval of the settlement agreement by the State Workers’ Compensation Commission (the “Commission”).

Mr. Collins and Petitioners submitted their signed settlement agreement to the Commission for its review and approval. The Commission subsequently issued an order approving the parties’ settlement, and Petitioners made the agreed-upon payments to Mr. Collins. Mrs. Collins was not a party to Mr. Collins’s settlement with Petitioners. After Mrs. Collins filed her claim for benefits based on Mr. Collins’s death from heart disease, Petitioners contested Mrs. Collins’s claim before the Commission, contending that Mr. Collins’s prior release of claims bars Mrs. Collins from recovering death benefits.

The Commission agreed with Petitioners and denied Mrs. Collins’s claim. On Mrs. Collins’s petition for judicial review, the Circuit Court for Calvert County granted summary judgment in favor of Petitioners based on release, thereby upholding the denial of Mrs. Collins’s claim. Mrs. Collins then appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, which reversed the circuit court’s judgment and remanded the case to the Commission for further proceedings on Mrs. Collins’s claim. The intermediate appellate court held that Mr. Collins’s release does not bar Mrs. Collins’s claim for death benefits because: (1) Mrs. Collins was not a party to the settlement; and (2) an employee’s settlement of claims for disability benefits relating to an accidental injury or occupational disease does not extinguish the independent claim for death benefits that a surviving dependent may bring if the employee dies of the same compensable injury or disease.

For the reasons discussed below, we agree with the Court of Special Appeals that the release Mr. Collins provided in settlement of his workers’ compensation claims does not bar Mrs. Collins from asserting her independent claim for death benefits under the Act. 2 I Background A. Mr. Collins’s Workers’ Compensation Claim Bernard Collins was born in October 1944. Peggy and Bernard Collins married in 1965. They remained married for the rest of Mr. Collins’s life. Mr. Collins worked for many years as a firefighter for the Department.

At some point during his employment, Mr. Collins developed heart disease and hypertension. Under the Act, a paid firefighter’s death or disability resulting from heart disease or hypertension is presumed to be compensable. LE § 9-503(a). On February 13, 2012, Mr. Collins filed a workers’ compensation claim with the Commission, alleging that he had developed heart disease and hypertension caused by his work for the Department.

Mr. Collins’s claim was assigned claim number B760589. In his claim, Mr. Collins listed his date of disablement as May 6, 2011 and his gross wages per week as $1,800. Chesapeake was the Department’s insurer as of May 6, 2011. Chesapeake successfully impleaded Selective into the case, based on Chesapeake’s contention that Mr. Collins’s actual date of disablement was December 12, 1998, when Mr. Collins underwent surgery for an aortic aneurysm.

Selective was the Department’s insurer as of December 12, 1998. Petitioners contested Mr. Collins’s claim, contending, among other things, that Mr. Collins’s heart disease and hypertension did not arise from his employment. On February 25, 2014, Mr. Collins, his counsel, and counsel for Petitioners appeared before the 3 Commission for an evidentiary hearing. On March 19, 2014, the Commission found that Mr. Collins had sustained an occupational disease (heart disease and hypertension), arising out of and in the course of his employment as a firefighter.

The Commission also found that Mr. Collins’s first date of disablement was May 6, 2011, and that as a result of his occupational disease, Mr. Collins was temporarily totally disabled on May 6, 2011, and from July 7, 2011 to July 24, 2011. The Commission subsequently determined that Mr. Collins’s average weekly wage at the time of disablement was $152.50. The parties filed cross-petitions for judicial review of the Commission’s decision in the Circuit Court for Calvert County. On February 19, 2015, the circuit court granted Mr. Collins’s motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of average weekly wage, concluding that the correct average weekly wage was $526.87.

Before the remaining issues in the petitions for judicial review were resolved, Mr. Collins and Petitioners decided to settle Mr. Collins’s claims, and the parties filed a stipulation of dismissal in the circuit court. As a result, on March 13, 2015, the circuit court dismissed the case and remanded it to the Commission. On May 14, 2015, Mr. Collins and Petitioners entered into an “Agreement of Final Compromise and Settlement” (the “Agreement”), which Petitioners had drafted. After reciting that Mr. Collins claimed to be disabled as a result of work-related heart disease/hypertension, the parties agreed that: (1) Mr. Collins’s average weekly wage as of his date of disablement was $526.87; and (2) upon approval of the Agreement by the Commission, Selective would pay Mr. Collins a lump sum of $100,000; Chesapeake would pay Mr. Collins a lump sum of $50,000; and Chesapeake also would fund a “Medicare Set 4 Aside” annuity in the amount of $47,192, by way of an initial payment of $9,438.08, followed by annual payments of $4,194.88 for nine years during Mr. Collins’s lifetime.

For his part, Mr. Collins (as the “Claimant”) agreed to release Petitioners from further liability and claims in paragraph 11 of the Agreement (the “Release”): The Claimant hereby accepts this Agreement and the aforesaid payment(s) in final compromise and settlement of any and all Claims which the Claimant, his personal representative, dependents, spouse and children or any other parties who might become beneficiaries under the Workers’ Compensation Law, might now or could hereafter have under the provision of the said Law, arising out of the aforesaid injury or disablement or the disability resulting therefrom, and does hereby, on behalf of himself and all of said other parties, release and forever discharge the Employer, Chesapeake and Selective, their personal representative, heirs, successors and assigns, from all other claims of whatsoever kind which might or could hereafter arise under the Law from the said injury, disablement or disability. The Agreement was signed by Mr. Collins, Mr. Collins’s attorney, and attorneys for Petitioners. Mrs. Collins was not a party to the Agreement. Nor did the Agreement allocate or describe any portion of the payments to be provided by Petitioners as consideration for the release of a potential claim for death benefits under the Act.

The parties filed the Agreement with the Commission on May 19, 2015. At the same time, Mr. Collins also provided the Commission with a “Claimant’s Affidavit in Support of Settlement” and other required documentation. In his Claimant’s Affidavit, which Mr. Collins provided on the Commission’s standard form, and which is required to be submitted for all settlements of claims under the Act, Mr. Collins recited: “I, Bernard Collins, am the claimant in claim # B760589. I ask the Workers’ Compensation Commission to approve the settlement of my claim….” Mr. Collins further stated, among other things: “I am voluntarily settling my claim.” Mr. Collins also acknowledged that, in 5 settling his claim, he was “giving up” various rights, including the right to vocational rehabilitation services, the right to payment during his lifetime for any medical treatment related to his claim (except as otherwise provided in the Agreement), and the right to seek to reopen his claim if his condition worsened.

Mr. Collins did not include Mrs. Collins’s right to file a claim for death benefits, if he were to die as a result of his occupational disease, in his recitation of the rights he was waiving as part of his settlement with Petitioners. On June 4, 2015, the Commission approved the Agreement. Petitioners subsequently made the agreed-upon payments to Mr. Collins. B. Mrs. Collins’s Claim for Death Benefits On June 8, 2017, Mr. Collins died from cardiac arrest.

On July 17, 2017, Mrs. Collins filed a “Dependent’s Claim for Death Benefits” with the Commission. Mrs. Collins’s claim was assigned claim number B829290. On the claim form, Mrs. Collins listed Mr. Collins’s “Date of Injury” as May 6, 2011, his average weekly wage as $1,800, and his “Cause of Injury or Disease” as “Heart Disease – Cardiac Arrest, Cardiomyopathy.” Mrs. Collins also claimed that, as of May 6, 2011, she did not have any average weekly wage, thereby indicating that she was wholly dependent upon Mr. Collins on the date of his disablement. Petitioners contested Mrs. Collins’s claim, asserting that the Release bars Mrs. Collins from receiving death benefits under the Act.

Petitioners also contested Mr. Collins’s date of disablement, his average weekly wage, and whether Mrs. Collins was dependent upon Mr. Collins when he became disabled. 6 The Commission held a hearing on Mrs. Collins’s claim on September 7, 2017, at which the parties presented their arguments concerning the effect of the Release on Mrs. Collins’s claim. Commissioner Kathleen A. Evans sat as the Commission at the hearing. Commissioner Evans did not make any findings of fact at the hearing, nor did she announce any conclusions of law. On September 25, 2017, the Commission issued a one-page order denying Mrs. Collins’s claim for death benefits.

After listing the issues in dispute among the parties, the order stated: “The Commission finds … that there is [no] right to survivorship/death benefits in the above entitled claim; and therefore in light of the decision as to [this] issue, the remaining issues are not applicable.” Mrs. Collins filed a petition for judicial review in the Circuit Court for Calvert County and prayed a jury trial. The parties subsequently filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On May 1, 2018, following a hearing, the circuit court issued an opinion and order holding that the Release bars Mrs. Collins’s claim for death benefits. The circuit court found that the language of the Release clearly and unambiguously evinces Mr. Collins’s intent, in exchange for the agreed-upon payments by Petitioners, to bar any claim for death benefits that Mrs. Collins otherwise might one day be able to assert against Petitioners arising from Mr. Collins’s heart disease.

The court then held that the Release is enforceable against Mrs. Collins because the Commission reviewed and approved the Agreement after Mr. Collins and Petitioners submitted it to the Commission in 2015. Mrs. Collins appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, which reversed the circuit court. In the Matter of Collins, 242 Md. App. 188 (2019). The Court of Special Appeals 7 concluded that Mr. Collins did not have the power unilaterally to release Mrs. Collins’s claim for death benefits when settling his case.

Id. at 204-07 . In addition, the Court of Special Appeals held that the Release is not enforceable against Mrs. Collins because she was not a party to the Agreement, and Mr. Collins’s settlement of his claim for disability benefits did not extinguish Mrs. Collins’s inchoate claim for death benefits based on the same compensable disease. Id. at 207-10 . Finally, the intermediate appellate court disagreed with the circuit court’s reading of the Release, concluding that the absence of a specific reference to death benefits claims “evinces that the parties did not intend the Release to extend to those claims.” Id. at 211-12 .

The Court of Special Appeals ordered the case remanded to the circuit court with instructions to enter judgment in favor of Mrs. Collins, and to remand the case to the Commission for further proceedings on Mrs. Collins’s claim. Petitioners filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, asking this Court to decide whether the Release operates to bar Mrs. Collins’s claim for death benefits under the Act. On October 9, 2019, we granted the petition. 466 Md. 215 (2019). II Discussion A. Standard of Review When reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we must make a threshold determination as to whether a genuine dispute of material fact exists.

Only where such a dispute is absent will we proceed to review determinations of law. Johnson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 430 Md. 368, 376 (2013); Uninsured Employers’ Fund v. 8 Danner, 388 Md. 649, 658 (2005). The Commission’s decision “is presumed to be prima facie correct,” LE § 9-745(b)(1), but this presumption does not extend to questions of law, which we review de novo. Johnson, 430 Md. at 376-77 ; Danner, 388 Md. at 658-59 .

B. The Purpose and Pertinent Provisions of the Act In 1914, the General Assembly passed the original version of the Act and established the Commission (originally known as the State Industrial Accident Commission). See 1914 Md. Laws 1429 -64 (ch. 800). An independent entity of the Maryland state government, the Commission conducts proceedings and investigations relating to workers’ compensation claims. See LE § 9-301 et seq.

The Commission is authorized to promulgate regulations to carry out its responsibilities under the Act. Id. § 9- 309(a). The purpose of the Act is to protect workers and their families from hardships inflicted by accidental work-related injuries and occupational diseases. See Gang v. Montgomery Cty., 464 Md. 270, 278 (2019).

Under the Act, an employer or insurer is liable to pay compensation to employees covered under the Act, who suffer an accidental personal injury, or who develop an occupational disease, in the course of their employment. See LE, Title 9, Subtitle 6, Parts I-XI. “Compensation awarded on this fault-free basis under the statutory plan substitutes for an employee’s common law right to bring a fault- based tort suit against an employer for damages resulting from the employee’s injury or disablement on the job.” DeBusk v. Johns Hopkins Hosp., 342 Md. 432, 438 (1996); see also LE § 9-509(b) (providing that compensation awarded to a covered employee under the Act “is in place of any right of action against any person”). The Act thus “strikes an 9 important balance between the need to provide some form of financial benefits to injured or sick employees and the need, of both employers and employees, to avoid expensive and unpredictable litigation over accidents in the workplace.” DeBusk, 342 Md. at 438 (emphasis in original). An employer or insurer is separately liable to pay death benefits to surviving dependents of employees who die as a result of a workplace injury or occupational disease.

See LE, Title 9, Subtitle 6, Part XII. With respect to death resulting from an accidental personal injury, the employee’s death must occur within seven years of the injury for a surviving dependent to receive death benefits under the Act. Id. § 9-501(a)(2). No similar time limit applies to death benefits where the employee dies from an occupational disease.

See id. § 9-502(c)(2). With respect to claims of disability or death due to occupational disease, an employer or insurer is liable to provide compensation if: 1. the occupational disease that caused the death or disability: i) is due to the nature of an employment in which hazards of the occupational disease exist and the covered employee was employed before the date of disablement; or ii) has manifestations that are consistent with those known to result from exposure to a biological, chemical, or physical agent that is attributable to the type of employment in which the covered employee was employed before the date of disablement; and 2. on the weight of the evidence, it reasonably may be concluded that the occupational disease was incurred as a result of the employment of the covered employee. 10 Id. § 9-502(d).1 The Act requires employers or insurers to provide various types of compensatory benefits to employees during their lifetimes who are injured or who develop occupational diseases, depending on the level of disability: temporary partial disability benefits, temporary total disability benefits, permanent partial disability benefits, or permanent total disability benefits. See id., Subtitle 6, Parts II–V. The amount of benefits to be paid generally bears a mathematical relationship to the average weekly wage of the employee, as determined by the Commission. See id. §§ 9-615, 9-621, 9-626–9-630 & 9-637.

An employer or insurer also is required to provide medical benefits to an employee who sustains a workplace injury or who develops an occupational disease. See id. §§ 9-660 & 9-661. The Act includes “Survival of Compensation” provisions with respect to permanent partial disability and permanent total disability payments. Id. §§ 9-632 & 9-640.

If, while still receiving disability benefits, a permanently disabled employee dies of a cause that is not compensable under the Act – meaning, a cause that is unrelated to the employee’s accidental injury or occupational disease – then the right to receive those benefits “survives to the surviving dependents” of the employee. Id. §§ 9-632(c) & 9-640(c). The Commission has promulgated a regulation requiring that, if a surviving dependent seeks to recover unpaid disability benefits due to an employee under a claim the employee filed in his or 1 As stated above, a presumption of compensability applies to a firefighter’s claim of occupational disease based on heart disease or hypertension. Id. § 9-503(a). 11 her lifetime, the surviving dependent must submit an “Issue Form in the same claim.” COMAR 14.09.02.06(A).

If an employee who is still receiving disability benefits dies as a result of the compensable injury or occupational disease, then the surviving dependents are not entitled to receive the remainder of those disability payments. However, in that circumstance (or regardless of whether the employee was receiving disability benefits at the time of death), a surviving dependent may assert a claim for death benefits under Part XII of Subtitle 6 of the Act. See LE § 9-678 et seq.2 The amount and duration of death benefits due to a surviving dependent is based on the level of dependency, the average weekly wage of the deceased employee at the time of the workplace injury or last injurious exposure to the hazards of the occupational disease, and other enumerated factors. See id. §§ 9-680, 9-681, 9-682 & 9-683.3.

The Commission determines the level of dependency based on the facts that existed at the time of the occurrence of the accidental injury, or on the date of the employee’s disablement from the occupational disease. Id. § 9-679(b). To initiate a claim for death benefits, a surviving dependent of the deceased employee does not file anything under the decedent’s prior claim for disability benefits, but rather must file a new “dependent death benefits claim form” with the Commission. COMAR 14.09.02.04(B).

Settlement of claims under the Act is governed by LE § 9-722, which provides: 2 As noted above, an exception to this statutory entitlement to death benefits exists where an employee dies as a result of an accidental injury more than seven years after the injury. Id. § 9-501(a)(2)(ii). 12 Subject to approval by the Commission under subsection (c) of this section, after a claim has been filed by a covered employee or the dependents of a covered employee, the covered employee or dependents may enter into an agreement for the final compromise and settlement of any current or future claim under this title with: (1) the employer; [and/or] (2) the insurer of the employer …. Id. § 9-722(a). The settlement agreement “shall contain the terms and conditions that the Commission considers proper,” id. § 9-722(b), and the agreement “may not take effect unless it has been approved by the Commission.” Id. § 9-722(c). “When approved by the Commission, a final compromise and settlement agreement is binding on all of the parties to the agreement.” Id. § 9-722(d)(1).

The Act is remedial legislation. Therefore, courts construe it “as liberally in favor of injured employees as its provisions will permit in order to effectuate its benevolent purposes.” Johnson, 430 Md. at 377 . C. The Release Does Not Bar Mrs. Collins’s Claim for Death Benefits. Mrs. Collins and Petitioners correctly observe that there is no material factual dispute that prevents us from determining, as a matter of law, whether the Release bars Mrs. Collins’s claim for death benefits.

That determination will require us to interpret pertinent provisions of the Act. The cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and effectuate the actual intent of the General Assembly in enacting the law under consideration. Lockshin v. Semsker, 412 Md. 257, 274 (2010). “If the language of the statute is unambiguous and clearly consistent with the statute’s apparent purpose, our inquiry as to legislative intent 13 ends ordinarily and we apply the statute as written, without resort to other rules of construction.” Id. at 275 . However, we do not analyze statutory language in a vacuum.

Id. Rather, statutory language “must be viewed within the context of the statutory scheme to which it belongs, considering the purpose, aim, or policy of the Legislature in enacting the statute.” Id. at 276 ; see Comptroller of Treasury v. Phillips, 384 Md. 583, 591 (2005). We presume that the General Assembly intends its enactments to work together “as a consistent and harmonious body of law, and, thus, we seek to reconcile and harmonize the parts of a statute, to the extent possible consistent with the statute’s object and scope.” Lockshin, 412 Md. at 276 ; see also Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. v. Fitzpatrick, 366 Md. 295, 302-03 (2001) (“[W]hen interpreting any statute, the statute as a whole must be construed, interpreting each provision of the statute in the context of the entire statutory scheme.”). 1. The Intended Scope of the Release Before we address Mrs. Collins’s and Petitioners’ competing interpretations of the Act, we note that they also differ in their interpretations of the Release.

On Petitioners’ reading of the Release, Mr. Collins agreed that, in exchange for the payments Petitioners would provide to him, neither Mr. Collins nor Mrs. Collins would ever assert any additional claims against Petitioners relating to Mr. Collins’s heart disease and hypertension, including a claim for death benefits. Petitioners contend that Mr. Collins unambiguously evinced his intent to release Mrs. Collins’s potential death benefits claim by agreeing, on behalf of his “dependents,” “to release and forever discharge” Petitioners “from all other 14 claims of whatsoever kind which might or could hereafter arise under the [Act] from [Mr. Collins’s] disability.” Conversely, Mrs. Collins contends that the Release unambiguously evinces the parties’ understanding and intent that Mrs. Collins’s potential future death benefits claim was not being released, because the Release is “completely devoid of language as to death claims.” Brief of Respondent at 12. The Court of Special Appeals agreed with Mrs. Collins: Given Mr. Collins’s age and medical condition, the possibility that he would die from the heart disease and hypertension he was presumed to have contracted from his work as a firefighter would have been evident to the parties to his workers’ compensation case. The failure to specify that claims accruing if Mr. Collins were to die because of his compensable occupational disease were being released by him on behalf of his dependents evinces that the parties did not intend the Release to extend to those claims. 242 Md. App. at 211-12 .

There is merit to both of these interpretations of the Release. On one hand, Mrs. Collins’s interpretation is consistent with the provision of the Act, discussed in more detail below, which codifies the basic tenet of contracts law that a settlement is binding on the parties to the agreement. LE § 7-922(d)(1). Given this statutory provision, it seems reasonable to assume that, had the parties sought to release Mrs. Collins’s potential claim for death benefits: (1) they would have included Mrs. Collins in the settlement negotiations; (2) if Mrs. Collins had been satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, she would have signed the Agreement as a party; and (3) the Agreement would have provided some consideration to Mrs. Collins in exchange for her release of claims against Petitioners.

Alternatively, as the Court of Special Appeals reasoned, if the parties intended the scope 15 of the Release to include Mrs. Collins’s inchoate claim for death benefits but did not believe that Mrs. Collins needed to sign the Agreement in order to be bound by the Release, they would have explicitly referenced a potential claim for death benefits, especially given the foreseeability of Mr. Collins’s death from his occupational disease. In addition, in the Claimant’s Affidavit provided to the Commission simultaneously with the Agreement, Mr. Collins recited a number of rights he was giving up by settling his claim, but did not include in that listing a potential future claim for death benefits that Mrs. Collins otherwise might be able to assert. This omission provides further support for Mrs. Collins’s argument that Mr. Collins did not intend to release Mrs. Collins’s potential claim for death benefits. On the other hand, the language of the Release is, undeniably, very broad.

The inclusion of “dependents” in a general release of “all other claims of whatsoever kind … which could hereafter arise” from Mr. Collins’s disability can reasonably be interpreted to cover Mrs. Collins’s inchoate death benefits claim. In short, we believe the Release is ambiguous as to whether Mr. Collins is releasing his dependents’ future claims for death benefits. Although we therefore could construe the ambiguous language in the Release “most strongly against” Petitioners as the drafters of the Agreement, see Credible Behavioral Health, Inc. v. Johnson, 466 Md. 380, 399-400 (2019); Kelley Const. Co. v. Washington Suburban Sanitary Comm’n, 247 Md. 241, 250 (1967), we need not do so to resolve this case.

Rather, we will assume for purposes of the remainder of this Opinion that, in settling his workers’ compensation claim, Mr. Collins intended to release a future claim for death benefits that Mrs. Collins otherwise might bring under the Act if he were to die as a result of his heart disease/hypertension. 16 2. Petitioners Cannot Enforce the Release Against Mrs. Collins. Petitioners contend that the Court of Special Appeals erred in holding that the Release is not enforceable against Mrs. Collins. They argue that § 9-722(a) “explicitly permits claimants to release future claims stemming from the current injury claim and it explicitly permits the Commission authority to approve such agreements if it otherwise considers the agreement acceptable.” Brief of Petitioners at 9 (emphasis in the original).

Mrs. Collins responds that § 9-722(a) does not allow either an employee or a dependent to settle a death benefits claim prior to the death of the employee. Alternatively, Mrs. Collins argues that employees do not have the authority to release their dependents’ independent claims for death benefits. Mrs. Collins further contends that the Commission’s approval of an employee’s unilateral release of a dependent’s death benefits claim has no effect, because § 9-722(d)(1) renders a settlement agreement unenforceable against any person who is not a party to the agreement. We resolve the parties’ conflicting interpretations of § 9-722 by holding that: (a) dependents may settle their future claims for death benefits; (b) an employee lacks the power to release his or her dependents’ independent claims for death benefits; and (c) the Commission’s approval of a settlement agreement that purports to release dependents’ claims for death benefits does not render the release enforceable against a dependent who is not a party to the agreement. a.

Dependents May Settle Their Future Claims for Death Benefits. We hold that the Act permits dependents to release future death benefits claims while the employees upon whom they depend are still alive. Dependents may release such 17 claims either as part of a global settlement also resolving the claims of an employee under the Act, or in a separate agreement submitted to the Commission after an employee files a claim for benefits resulting from a compensable injury or occupational disease. Section 9-722(a) provides that, “after a claim has been filed by a covered employee or the dependents of a covered employee, the covered employee or dependents may enter into an agreement for the final compromise and settlement of any current or future claim under this title with … the employer; [and/or] … the insurer of the employer.” Mrs. Collins interprets this language to mean that dependents may settle death benefits claims only after they have filed such claims with the Commission.

In support of her interpretation, Mrs. Collins notes that a Commission regulation provides: “When the settlement arises in connection with a claim involving a surviving dependent, the agreement submitted to the Commission for approval … shall contain … [a] statement setting forth in factual detail the position of the parties on each issue involved in the claim” and requires that the parties also provide “[t]he certificate of death of the deceased employee” as well as “[t]he certificate of marriage for the dependent and deceased employee, if the dependent is the surviving spouse of the employee.” COMAR 14.09.10.02(C)(2). Mrs. Collins reads this regulation as “presum[ing] that a settlement of a dependent’s claim for death benefits arises in the context of a claim brought by the dependent after the injured worker’s death, not in the context of the worker’s claim for disability benefits that accrued or is settled during his lifetime.” Brief of Respondent at 15 (emphasis in original). Thus, according to Mrs. Collins: L&E § 9-722, read together with the COMAR regulations, means that after a worker files a claim for disability, medical and/or vocational rehabilitation benefits, he or she may enter into an agreement to settle that 18 claim, subject to approval by the Commission. In doing so, the injured worker may settle his/her own future claims arising from a worsening of his/her condition and may release the employer/insurer from a potential claim for benefits (“survivor benefits”) that derive from that claim-those due and owing at the time of his/her death.

Likewise, after a surviving dependent of a deceased covered worker files a claim for death benefits, he/she may independently settle that separate death claim with the deceased worker’s employer or insurer. Brief of Respondent at 15 (emphasis in original). Although § 9-722(a) provides that “a claim” must have been “filed by a covered employee or the dependents of a covered employee” before the employee or the dependents may enter into a settlement with respect to “any current or future claim,” the statute does not say that dependents may only settle claims that they have already filed. While the language of § 9-722(a) is not crystal clear, we believe the better reading of this provision is that, once any claim has been filed under the Act based on an employee’s accidental personal injury or occupational disease – either by the employee or by a dependent after the employee’s death – a dependent may settle his or her current or future claim based on the employee’s injury or disease.

We adopt this interpretation of § 9-722(a) for several reasons. First, our interpretation gives full effect to the word “future” in § 9-722(a), where the General Assembly has stated that a “covered employee or dependents may enter into an agreement for the final compromise and settlement of any current or future claim under this title.” LE § 9-722(a) (emphasis added). Significantly, this language does not distinguish between the ability of employees and dependents to settle future claims. However, under Mrs. Collins’s interpretation, as stated in the passage from her brief quoted 19 above, while an “injured worker may settle his/her own future claims,” a dependent may only settle a current claim (“after a surviving dependent of a deceased covered worker files a claim for death benefits, he/she may independently settle that separate death claim”).

Brief of Respondent at 15 (emphasis in original). Second, we find it significant that § 9-722(a) refers to “dependents,” not “surviving dependents.” If § 9-722(a) only allowed a “surviving dependent” to enter into a settlement under the Act, Mrs. Collins’s citation of COMAR 14.09.10.02(C)(2) – which refers to those instances “[w]hen settlement arises in connection with a claim involving a surviving dependent” (emphasis added) – would be more persuasive. The General Assembly refers to “surviving dependents” in various places in the Act where it addresses a specific situation involving the status of a dependent after the death of the employee upon whom he or she was dependent. See, e.g., LE §§ 9-632, 9-640, 9-646 & 9-685.

In contrast, in § 9- 722(a) and other places in the Act, the General Assembly refers only to “dependents” or “dependency,” signifying that the death of the employee is not necessarily germane to the particular situation being addressed in that provision. See, e.g., id. § 9-679 (providing that determination of partial or total “dependency” is to be made based on facts that exist at the time of injury or disablement). If the General Assembly, in enacting § 9-722(a), had intended to prohibit dependents from settling future claims for death benefits, it presumably would have referred only to “surviving dependents,” or expressly would have limited dependents to settling their current claims, instead of permitting them to settle “any current or future claim.” 20 Third, our interpretation is consistent with the language the General Assembly used when it enacted the language from which the current version of § 9-722 derives. In 1957, the General Assembly passed House Bill 937, which, among other changes to the Act, added a provision explicitly allowing employees and/or dependents to settle their current or future claims “[a]t any time after” an employee has filed a claim for compensation, and making such settlements binding on “all parties” to such agreements: At any time after a claim for compensation under this Article has been filed with the … Commission by any claimant, the said claimant and/or his or her dependents may, with the approval of the Commission, enter into an agreement with the employer or insurer of such employer providing for a final compromise and settlement of any and all claims which the said employee or his or her dependents might then or thereafter have under the provisions of this Article, upon such terms and conditions as the Commission shall, in its discretion, deem proper.

Any such settlement when approved by the Commission shall be binding upon all parties thereto, and no such settlement shall be effective unless approved by the Commission. Upon death, any balance payable under such final compromise and settlement shall be an asset in the hands of the personal representative of the deceased party to such final compromise and settlement. 1957 Md. Laws 1507 (ch. 814). This provision was codified at Article 101, § 53, of the Maryland Code. The language of the first sentence of this provision unambiguously allowed dependents to settle “any and all claims” they “might then or thereafter have” (which would include future claims for death benefits) at “any time after” an employee filed a claim for compensation under the Act.

Thus, the General Assembly, in enacting the predecessor of § 9-722(a), permitted an employee’s dependents to settle their future death benefits claims while the employee was alive. In 1991, when the General Assembly repealed Article 101 and recodified the Act as Subtitle 9 of the new Labor and Employment Article, it divided former § 53 of Article