Janet's Cleaning Service v. Roynon

RODOWSKY, Judge. Because of a reciprocity requirement in Maryland law we must decide a question of Virginia law in order to determine if the workers’ compensation claim asserted in this case may be entertained in Maryland. Respondent, Anna M. Roynon (Roynon), filed a claim with the Workmen’s Compensation Commission of Maryland (Commission) alleging that she had been injured in May 1983 while at work for one of the petitioners, Janet’s Cleaning Service, when a co-worker punched Roynon in the mouth. Janet’s Cleaning contested the Commission’s jurisdiction and the Commission ultimately ruled that it had none.

The Circuit Court for Montgomery County affirmed the Commission but the Court of Special Appeals reversed. ⁶⁸⁸ Roynon v. Janet’s Cleaning Serv., 70 Md.App. 554 , 521 A.2d 1271 (1987). We granted certiorari. The jurisdictional defense rests on Md.Code (1957, 1985 Repl.Vol., 1987 Cum.Supp.), Art. 101, § 21 which defines the coverage of the Maryland’s Workmen’s Compensation Article (the Act). 1 We are specifically concerned with § 21(c)(4) which reads in relevant part: An employee and his employer who are not residents of this State and whose contract of hire is entered into in another state shall be exempted from the provisions of this article while such employee is temporarily or intermittently within this State doing work for such nonresident employer, [1] if such employer has furnished workmen’s compensation insurance coverage under the workmen’s compensation or similar laws of such other state, so as to cover such employee’s employment while in this State; provided [2] the extraterritorial provisions of this article are recognized in such other state and provided employers and employees who are covered in this State are likewise exempted from the application of the workmen’s compensation or similar laws of such other state. The benefits under the workmen’s compensation act or similar laws of such other state shall be the exclusive remedy against such employer for any injury, whether resulting in death or not, received by such employee while working for such employer in this State. [Emphasis added.] The operative jurisdictional facts are undisputed.

The claimant was a Virginia resident at the time of her injury; her employer was a Virginia resident; her contract of employment was entered into in Virginia; she performed services for Janet’s Cleaning in Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland; Janet’s Cleaning obtained workers’ compensation insurance that was applicable in both ⁶⁸⁹ Maryland and Virginia; and Roynon was injured in the course of her employment while in Silver Spring, Maryland. 2 Applying § 21(c)(4) to these facts Janet’s Cleaning contends that Virginia has exclusive jurisdiction. Roynon on the other hand submits that the requirements of § 21(c)(4) under which Maryland would leave her to her Virginia compensation remedy are not satisfied because Virginia would allow a Maryland resident injured under comparable circumstances in Virginia to claim compensation in Virginia. In short, she argues that Virginia would not treat Maryland’s compensation law as being exclusively applicable. Section 21(c)(4) is concerned with conflict of laws.

With the advent of workers’ compensation statutes the conflict of laws problems that arose did not fit neatly into the historic principles governing either contract or tort. See Hauch v. Conner, 295 Md. 120, 126-27 , 453 A.2d 1207, 1210-11 (1983); F. Stroke and D. Sears, Reciprocal Exemption Provisions of Workmen’s Compensation Acts, 67 Yale L.J. 982 (1958). A worker’s compensation conflict of laws problem is a hybrid of both, involving “the employment status, created by contract, and the occurrence of an injury____” Id. at 983 . As a result, for conflicts purposes many courts “developed the idea that workmen’s compensation cases should be placed in a [conflicts] category of their own____” Id.

In order to avoid the disparate resolutions which resulted from this treatment and which created sometimes overlapping and sometimes abdicating choice-of-law solutions, several states, including Maryland, enacted reciprocal exemption statutes as is § 21(c)(4). These statutes are “based on the theory that the state of injury, having the lesser interest, can afford to cede jurisdiction to the state with the dominant interest, usually the state where the contract is ⁶⁹⁰ made or where the principal employment is located.” See id. at 992. For Maryland to withhold coverage on the present facts § 21(c)(4) requires, first, that Virginia have an extraterritorial provision which extends workers’ compensation coverage to Roynon’s Maryland accident and, secondly, that Virginia would withhold compensation coverage from a Maryland resident under similar facts, i.e., a Maryland resident, employed by a Maryland business, and working under a Maryland contract of employment who is injured in Virginia. Virginia’s compensation statute has an extraterritorial provision which embraces this claimant.

Virginia Code Annotated, Title 65.1 (1950, 1987 Repl.Vol.), “Workers’ Compensation Act” (the Virginia Act) provides in § 65.1-61: Foreign injuries.—When an accident happens while the employee is employed elsewhere than in this Commonwealth which would entitle him or his dependents to compensation if it had happened in this Commonwealth, the employee or his dependents shall be entitled to compensation, if: (1) The contract of employment was made in this Commonwealth; and (2) The employer’s place of business is in this Commonwealth; ____ The first aspect of the test under Maryland Act § 21(c)(4) is not in controversy here. The dispute here is with the second aspect of that test, namely, whether Virginia would extend coverage to an analogous Maryland claimant. If so, Roynon would not be exempted by Maryland Act § 21(c)(4) with the result that her claim is within the jurisdiction of the Maryland Commission. The determinative portion of Maryland Act § 21(c)(4) reads: [PJrovided the extraterritorial provisions of this article are recognized in such other state and provided employers and employees who are covered in this State are ⁶⁹¹ likewise exempted from the application of the workmen’s compensation or similar laws of such other state.

Although this language appears to require a recognition of Maryland’s extraterritorial provisions by Virginia as well as a Virginia exemption for similarly situated Maryland employees, the Court of Special Appeals, speaking through Judge Bloom, correctly recognized that there is but a single condition. There would appear to be only one way that [Virginia] can afford recognition to the extraterritorial effects of [Maryland] compensation laws, and that is by exempting the citizens of [Maryland] from the requirements of the compensation laws of [Virginia]. [Roynon v. Janet’s Cleaning Serv., supra, 70 Md.App. at 559 , 521 A.2d at 1273 .] The Virginia Act does not expressly exempt nonresident employees from coverage. In the context of conflict of laws applications under the Virginia Act the question is not whether the Virginia Act generally confers coverage and then exempts certain nonresident claimants, but whether the Virginia Act extends jurisdiction to the nonresident claimant. The scope of jurisdiction under the Virginia Act is judicially determined. 3 Appellants rely on Solomon v. Call, 159 Va. 625 , 166 S.E. 467 (1932) and assert that it, as the only Virginia Supreme Court decision involving the issue of coverage, is controlling.

Solomon involved a tort action brought by a Pennsylvania resident who had sustained injuries in an automobile accident in Virginia while in the scope of his employment as a salesman for a Pennsylvania employer. The plaintiff had been awarded compensation benefits under the Pennsylvania statute. Under the Virginia Act at that time the acceptance of a compensation award constituted an election which ⁶⁹² barred a later recovery against a negligent third person. Id. at 629 , 166 S.E. at 468 .

Solomon held that the tort action was not barred because the plaintiff could not claim under the Virginia Act. The court reasoned that [t]he plaintiffs employment was under a Pennsylvania contract, with a Pennsylvania employer and embraced within the terms of the workman’s compensation act of that State. His contract of employment was entirely foreign to the State of Virginia and clearly outside of the Virginia workman’s compensation act. The plaintiff could not have successfully maintained any claim for compensation under the Virginia workman’s compensation act because he was not embraced therein and not being within the Virginia act and not having accepted an award thereunder, he is not prohibited by the act nor by common law from maintaining his action for the injuries received against the negligent third person or persons responsible for them.

He could not have obtained any of the benefits of the Virginia act and he is not required to suffer and bear the prohibitions of it. [Id. at 680, 166 S.E. at 468-69 (emphasis added).] We read Solomon to stand for the proposition that Virginia will not extend jurisdiction to a claim involving a foreign contract of employment with a nonresident employee where there is no evidence that the employment contract in any way accepted the provisions of the Virginia Act. In Solomon the employer maintained no place of business in Virginia and had not registered with the Virginia agency administering workers’ compensation. Nor was there evidence that the employment contract contemplated performance in Virginia.