Jennifer v. State

KRAUSER, Judge. While working in the kitchen of the Central Laundry Facility of the Maryland Division of Correction, prison inmate Dave Shawn Jennifer was attacked and injured by fellow prisoner and co-worker, Stanley B. Taylor. Jennifer brought an action in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against Taylor for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and ²¹⁴ against the State of Maryland 1 for violations of Article 25 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, but his suit proved unavailing. Holding that Jennifer’s exclusive remedy against the State lay with the Sundry Claims Board, the circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the State and thereafter entered a default judgment against Taylor.

On appeal, Jennifer claims that the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment because his injury neither “arose out of his employment” nor was “accidental”: two conditions that must be met, he insists, before Sundry Claims Board review can be obtained. Because we find that Jennifer’s injury did indeed arise out of his employment, and because we conclude that the Board’s jurisdiction is not limited to injuries that are “accidental,” at least as that term is interpreted by Jennifer, 2 but includes injuries caused by the willful acts of third parties, we hold that Jennifer’s exclusive remedy lies with the Sundry Claims Board. Accordingly, we shall affirm the judgment of the circuit court. Background On August 23, 2002, Jennifer was working in the Central Laundry Facility with fellow inmate Stanley B. Taylor, where he received a wage for the work he performed. 3 On that August day, Jennifer asked the dietary officer on duty in the kitchen for permission to have a hamburger.

The officer agreed and directed Taylor to serve Jennifer the food he requested. But Taylor refused and, according to Jennifer’s ²¹⁵ complaint, “[a] heated argument” erupted between Taylor and the officer. It ended when Taylor stated that “he would rather throw [the hamburger] on the floor than give it to [Jennifer],” and then proceeded to do precisely that. The officer then ordered Taylor to leave the kitchen.

The next day, Taylor was again assigned to work in the kitchen. Although the two prisoners were placed in different areas of the kitchen and given separate duties, at some point Taylor “approached [Jennifer] from behind, holding a large spatula used to stir large pots” and struck him in the head with it. Taylor was, at that time, according to Jennifer’s complaint, “under care by [the State] for mental health problems ... related to [his] violent disposition,” but had, at that point, exhausted the medication he was taking for that condition. “Despite requests to [prison officials] for additional medicine,” none, the complaint averred, was provided. Discussion Jennifer contends that the circuit court erred in holding that his sole remedy against the State lay with the Sundry Claims Board (“the Board”) and, on that basis, entering summary judgment for the State.

Because this case was disposed of on a motion for summary judgment, our task would normally be to “ ‘determine if there is a genuine dispute of material fact and, if not, whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’ ” Goldstein v. Miles, 159 Md.App. 403, 422 , 859 A.2d 313 (2004) (quoting Crews v. Hollenbach, 126 Md.App. 609, 624 , 730 A.2d 742 (1999), aff'd, 358 Md. 627 , 751 A.2d 481 (2000)). But, since neither party alleges that there are any material facts in dispute, we confine our review of that motion to “whether summary judgment was correctly entered as a matter of law,” Standard Fire Ins. Co. v. Berrett, 395 Md. 439, 450-451 , 910 A.2d 1072 (2006) (citing Ross v. State Bd. of Elections, 387 Md. 649, 658 , 876 A.2d 692 , (2005); Todd v. MTA, 373 Md. 149, 154 , 816 A.2d 930 (2003); Beyer v. Morgan State Univ., 369 ²¹⁶ Md. 335, 359 , 800 A.2d 707 (2002)), that is, “ “whether the trial court was legally correct’” in granting summary judgment. Messing v. Bank of Am., N.A., 143 Md.App. 1, 10 , 792 A.2d 312 (2002) (quoting Heat & Power Corp. v. Air Prods. & Chems., Inc., 320 Md. 584, 591 , 578 A.2d 1202 (1990)).

We conclude that it was. The Sundry Claims Board Act 4 (“SCBA”) provides that the compensation authorized by that act is the “exclusive remedy against the State for a claim,” § 10-308(c) 5 , made by “an individual, who while an inmate in the Patuxent Institution, the Baltimore City Detention Center, or a correctional facility in the Division of Correction: (1) was engaged in work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and (2) sustained a permanent partial disability or permanent total disability: (i) as a result of a personal injury arising out of and in the course of work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and (ii) that incapacitated [the claimant] or materially reduced [his or her] earning power in that type of work.” § 10-304. See Dixon v. Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, 175 Md.App. 384 , 927 A.2d 445 (2007). Although Jennifer does not dispute that his injury occurred “in the course of’ his employment, while he was “engaged in work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility,” and that he “sustained a permanent partial disability or total disability,” id., he maintains that, because his injury neither “a[rose] out of’ his work nor was “accidental,” id., it did not fall within the exclusive province of the Board. ²¹⁷ “Arising Out Of’ The SCBA does not explicitly define the phrase “arising out of.” Nor have our appellate courts considered the meaning of this phrase in the context of that act.

But they have repeatedly considered its import in other statutory settings, notably § 9-101(b) of what is now entitled the Workers’ 6 Compensation Act (“WCA”), 7 which employs this locution, as the SCBA does, in defining compensable claims. Section 9-101(b) of the WCA states that an injury covered by that act is one “that arises out of and in the course” of the claimant’s employment. (Emphasis added.) Jennifer maintains, however, that it would be error for us to assume that the legislature intended that the phrase, “arising out of,” be given the same meaning in the SCBA that it has been given in the WCA. He claims that, where the legislature intended that phrases common to both acts would have the same meaning, it expressly said so in the SCBA.

To illustrate his point, he invokes § 10-301(c) and § 10-301(d) of the SCBA, which respectively state that “permanent partial disability” and “permanent total disability” shall have the same meanings in the SCBA that they have in the WCA. 8 ²¹⁸ But this argument is misleading. The SCBA relies on the WCA for the definitions of “permanent partial disability” and “permanent total disability” because those locutions, unlike “arising out of,” are expressly defined in that act. In other words, the reason that the SCBA does not refer to the WCA’s definition of “arising out of’ is simply because it contains no such definition. If those sections of the SCBA provide little support for Jennifer’s position, the legislative history of the SCBA provides even less.

In fact, as we shall see, that history compels us to conclude that the phrase, “arising out of,” was placed in the SCBA to convey the same meaning that it does in the WCA. Before the legislature enacted the SCBA, the WCA governed claims made by all workers, including inmates at Maryland’s correctional facilities, for injuries “arising out of and in the course of’ their employment. 9 See Md.Code (1939), Art. 101, § 14. But, in 1961, inmate claims were removed from the WCA for all workers with the passage of the SCBA. 10 That act established a separate board, the Sundry Claims Board, to handle claims for compensation made by prison inmates for work-related injuries. To be more precise, its purpose, in the words of the act, was to “amend[ ] the compensation laws to remove therefrom references to the payment of workmen’s compensation to certain prisoners and inmates of penal institutions ... [and] creat[e] a ‘Sundry Claims Board’ to provide for the payment of claims for injuries to certain prisoners in this State, and relating generally to the payment of workmen’s compensation benefits and to the payment of other claims for injuries incurred by prisoners and inmates of [Maryland] penal institutions.” See Md.Code (1957, 1961 Supp.), Art. 41, § 188A. 11 ²¹⁹ In 1993, the SCBA was amended and the phrase, “arising out of,” was added so that the act now expressly required that a prisoner’s injury “aris[e] out of and in the course of work” to fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Sundry Claims Board.

See 1993 Md. Laws, Chap. 133. 12 (Emphasis added.) Re-codified in 1999 as §§ 10-301-10-310 of the Maryland Code, the statute currently provides, as we stated earlier, that the Board “shall administer benefits ... to an individual who, while an inmate in the Patuxent Institution, the Baltimore City Detention Center, or a correctional facility in the Division of Corrections: (1) was engaged in work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and (2) sustained a permanent partial disability or permanent total disability: (i) as a result of a personal injury arising out of and in the course of work for which wages or a stipulated sum of money was paid by a correctional facility; and (ü) that incapacitated the individual or materially reduced t he individual’s earning power in that type of work.” § 10-304. (Emphasis added.) After defining what is compensable in § 10-304, the SCBA goes on to list, in § 10-308(a) 13 , what factors may be considered by the Board as to whether a claim should be compensated and, if so, in what amount, stating: In determining what compensation, if any, to allow a claimant, the Board shall consider: (1) the good faith of the claimant; (2) the possibility that the alleged injury was self-inflicted or not accidental; ²²⁰ (3) the extent and nature of the injury; (4) the degree of disability; (5) the period of disability or incapacity for other work; and (6) the ordinary earning power of the claimant. § 10-308(a) (Emphasis added.) The phrase, “arising out of’ was added to the WCA, as we noted earlier, in 1939, when prisoner compensation claims were still covered by that act. See Md.Code (1939), Art. 101, § 14. That phrase was thereafter interpreted by our appellate courts in the context of that act and that interpretation applied to all workers — see, e.g., Livering v. Richardson’s Restaurant, 374 Md. 566 , 823 A.2d 687 (2003); Mulready v. Univ.

Research Corp., 360 Md. 51 , 756 A.2d 575 (2000); and Montgomery County v. Smith, 144 Md.App. 548 , 799 A.2d 406 (2002) — including prison inmates. See Gray v. Dept. of Correction, 230 Md. 508 , 187 A.2d 860 (1963). Later, after the SCBA was passed, this language was added to more specifically define compensable injuries. In so doing, the legislature, we presume, was “aware of the interpretation” that our appellate courts had previously placed on that language in interpreting the WCA and consequently added that language with the expectation that it would be given the same interpretation when it was judicially construed in the context of the SCBA.

See Del Marr v. Montgomery County, 169 Md.App. 187, 212 , 900 A.2d 243 (2006) (“[T]he Legislature is presumed to be aware of the interpretation that the courts ha[ve] placed upon its enactments.”). We further presume the legislature “intended statutes that affect [the] same subject matter to blend into [a] consistent and harmonious body of law.” That is to say, “various consistent and related enactments, although made at different times and without reference to one another, nevertheless should be harmonized as much as possible.” State v. Bricker, 321 Md. 86, 93 , 581 A.2d 9 (1990) (citing Taxiera v. Malkus, 320 Md. 471, 481 , 578 A.2d 761 (1990); Farmers & Merchants Bank v. Schlossberg, 306 Md. 48, 56 , 507 A.2d 172 (1986); ²²¹ Bridges v. Nicely, 304 Md. 1, 10 , 497 A.2d 142, 146 (1985)). Given that the SCBA and the WCA “affect the same subject matter” and are “consistent and related,” we conclude that the legislature intended them “to blend into [a] consistent and harmonious body of law.” Bricker, 321 Md. at 93 , 581 A.2d 9 (other citations omitted). To achieve that end, we must give the phrases they share, such as “arising out of,” the same meaning in both acts.

Still, hoping to persuade us to do otherwise, Jennifer cites Dept. of Public Safety & Correctional Servs. v. Le Van, 288 Md. 533, 419 A.2d 1052 (1980), for the proposition that the WCA provides no guidance in such matters. But a review of that case leads us to question its relevance. In Le Van, the Court of Appeals held that the circuit court had erred in applying the WCA — specifically, Art. 101, § 36(4)(a) 14 — to calculate an award for a claimant’s back injury under the SCBA when the latter act had a specific provision — namely, Art. 41 § 188A(e) — setting forth the factors that should be considered in determining the amount of compensation that should be awarded 15 . In substituting the factors set forth in Art. 101, § 36(4)(a) of the WCA for those expressly stated in Art. 41 § 188A(e) of the SCBA, the circuit court rendered a significant part of that act “meaningless, surplusage, superfluous or nugatory” and thereby violated a cardinal rule of statutory construction.

See, e.g., Government Employees Ins. Co. and GEICO v. Insurance Commissioner of the State of Maryland, 332 Md. 124, 132 , 630 A.2d 713 ²²² (1993) (citing Tracey v. Tracey, 328 Md. 380, 387 , 614 A.2d 590 (1992); D & Y, Inc. v. Winston, 320 Md. 534, 538 , 578 A.2d 1177 (1990); Kindley v. Governor of Md., 289 Md. 620, 625 , 426 A.2d 908 (1981); Moberly v. Herboldsheimer, 276 Md. 211, 217 , 345 A.2d 855 (1975)). (It is a cardinal rule of statutory interpretation that, in construing “two statutes, enacted at different times and not referring to each other ... neither statute should be read ... so as to render the other ... meaningless, surplusage, superfluous or nugatory.”). But that is clearly not what either party is requesting us to do here.

To the contrary, we are not being asked to ignore the plain language of the SCBA in favor of competing language in the WCA but to determine whether a phrase, which both acts share, should be given the same interpretation in the SCBA that we have given it in that act’s legislative predecessor and now counterpart, the WCA, in light of the common goals and history of those two acts. Thus, Le Van is simply not applicable to the instant case. The phrase “arises out of’ in § 9-101 of the WCA has been interpreted by the Court of Appeals as “requir[ing] not that the performance of an employment-related task be the direct or physical cause of the injury, but, more broadly, that the injury be incidental to the employment, such that it was by reason of the employment that the employee was exposed to the risk resulting in the injury.” Livering v. Richardson’s Restaurant, 374 Md. 566, 574-575 , 823 A.2d 687 (2003). In other words, “[a]n injury arises out of the employment if it would not have occurred but for the fact that the conditions and obligations of the employment placed [the employee] in the position where he [or she] was injured.” 16 Id. at 575 , 823 A.2d 687 (citations omitted). ²²³ Illustrative of this principle is Mulready v. Univ.

Research Corp., 360 Md. 51, 53, 66 , 756 A.2d 575 (2000). In that case, an employee’s injury caused by her slip and fall in her hotel bathtub, which occurred while she was attending a seminar in Canada on behalf of her employer, was held to arise out of her employment under the WCA because “it occurred as a result of an activity reasonably incidental to the travel that the employer required.” (Emphasis added.) Conversely, in Montgomery County v. Smith, 144 Md.App. 548, 551 , 799 A.2d 406 (2002), an off-duty injury suffered by a correctional officer while he was playing basketball at the detention center where he worked was held not to have arisen out of his employment because such “recreational activities” were not “ ‘incident’ to his job as a prison guard.” Id. at 578 , 799 A.2d 406 . In so holding, we explained that “[a]n injury arises out of the employment if it would not have occurred but for the fact that the employee’s job required the employee to be in the place where he was injured.” Smith, 144 Md.App. at 577 , 799 A.2d 406 (citing Mulready, 360 Md. at 66 , 756 A.2d 575 ). Since the officer’s “job did not require him to be on the basketball court where he was injured,” his injury, we concluded, did not satisfy that test.

Id. But Jennifer’s injury does. Certainly, he would not have suffered the injury he did “but for the fact that the conditions and obligations of the employment placed [him] in the position where he was injured.” Livering, 374 Md. at 574-75 , 823 A.2d 687 . At the time the assault took place, Jennifer was required by his employer, the Central Laundry Facility, to be in the kitchen.

His presence there provided Taylor, who had also been assigned to work in the kitchen that day, with the opportunity to assault him as well as the instrument with which to carry out that attack. Thus, Jennifer’s injury was incidental to his work. Because a “reasonably incidental” relationship between the injury and the claimant’s work is sufficient, in itself, to establish that an injury arose out of employment, we conclude that Jennifer’s injury satisfied that requirement. Mulready, 360 Md. at 53, 66 , 756 A.2d 575 (2000). ²²⁴ Although Jennifer appears to concede this very point, 17 he claims that the assault was motivated by Taylor’s animosity toward him and that it therefore “could have occurred anywhere.” Relying on Gray v. Dept. of Correction, 230 Md. 508 , 187 A.2d 860 (1963), Jennifer argues that his injury did not arise out of his employment.

In Gray , a prisoner was injured under what Jennifer claims were analogous circumstances: that is, as a result of being assaulted while working in the laundry at a Maryland penitentiary. Because the Gray Court found that the prisoner’s injuries did not “arise out of’ his work, we must, Jennifer claims, reach the same result here. But, apart from the fact that in both Gray and the instant case the claimant and his assailant were inmates at a Maryland prison when the claimant was injured, the two cases have few material facts in common. Indeed, in rejecting recovery under the Sundry Board Claims Act, the Gray Court stressed that “a clear inference” could be drawn from the evidence “that [the prisoner] was injured as the result of a fight with another inmate” that had previously occurred outside of work and in “retaliation for a homosexual advance by [the injured prisoner].” Id. at 512 , 187 A.2d 860 .

In contrast, Jennifer has offered no