Mackin & Associates v. Harris

JOHN F. McAULIFFE, Judge, Specially Assigned. The claimant in this Workers’ Compensation case, Dean A. Harris, suffered a compensable injury in 1989 while employed by Mackin & Associates. An award was passed in his favor, and he was provided with appropriate benefits by Mackin and its insurer (hereinafter, collectively, Mackin). Subsequently, Harris terminated his employment with Mackin and engaged in a business of his own.

In 1993, while self-employed, Harris suffered injuries when he slipped on a patch of ice and fell. Harris requested the Workers’ Compensation Commission to order Mackin to pay additional benefits connected with the subsequent accident because, he said, the fall occurred while ³ he was on his way to the office of a physical therapist to receive treatment for the earlier compensable accident. Thus, argued Harris, the second accident was a consequence of the first and should likewise be compensable. The Workers’ Compensation Commission denied the claim.

Harris appealed to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County and that court entered summary judgment in favor of Mackin. Harris appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, and that Court reversed. Harris v. Mackin, 100 Md.App. 363 , 641 A.2d 938 (1994). This Court granted Mackin’s petition for certiorari, and we shall reverse the judgment of the intermediate appellate court, finding that there is no legally sufficient nexus between the first accident and the subsequent accident to support an additional award of compensation.

The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act requires an employer of a covered employee to provide compensation for “an accidental injury that arises out of and in the course of employment ... or a disease or infection that naturally results from an accidental injury that arises out of and in the course of employment.” Maryland Code (1991 Repl.Vol.), §§ 9-101 and 9-501 of the Labor & Employment Article. Mackin asserts that the 1993 accident could not have arisen out of Harris’s employment with Mackin because at the time of that accident Harris was self-employed. Harris responds that the 1993 accident naturally resulted from the 1989 accident because, but for the 1989 accident he would not have been required to go to the therapist in 1993, and but for the requirement of that visit he would not have fallen on the ice at that time and place. Mackin is correct that, standing alone, Harris’s 1993 accident could not have arisen out of and in the course of his employment -with Mackin.

As Judge Harrell pointed out for the Court of Special Appeals in a case involving a similar employment situation: [T]he Claimant was not employed by the Employer in any capacity when he suffered his heart attack. His employment had been terminated approximately three years be ⁴ fore.... Because he was not the Employer’s employee at the time of the injury, the injury simply could not have arisen out of and in the course of his employment. Huffman v. Koppers Co., 94 Md.App. 180, 186 , 616 A.2d 451 (1992), affirmed, 330 Md. 296 , 623 A.2d 1296 (1993).

In Huffman , the claimant suffered a heart attack while being deposed by his employer during the pendency of the employer’s appeal of an award in favor of the claimant. The Court of Special Appeals assumed, arguendo, that the stress of appearing at the deposition contributed to the heart attack but affirmed the denial of benefits, holding there was an insufficient link between the original employment and the subsequent heart attack. This Court has recognized that a subsequent injury caused by an earlier industrial accident may be compensable even though the subsequent injury occurred when the claimant was not pursuing the employer’s business in the ordinary sense of the word. See, e.g., Great A. & P. Tea Co. v. Hill, 201 Md. 630 , 95 A.2d 84 (1953) (evidence sufficient to show that nonindustrial fracture of leg was caused by compensable fracture three years earlier); Unger & Mahon v. Lidston, 177 Md. 265 , 9 A.2d 604 (1939) (jury question whether industrial injury to ankle was cause of fall and fracture of hip nine days later).

In considering the question of causation in Lidston , the Court quoted from Bramble v. Shields, 146 Md. 494 , 506, 127 A. 44, 48 (1924), as follows: But in cases arising under the Workmen’s Compensation Law the question of negligence is excluded, and with it the rule as to reasonable and probable consequence would also be excluded, if such rule were applicable here. The only test is: Did the accidental injury arise out of and in the course of employment? If it did, it makes no difference whether it was a normal or abnormal occurrence and so with ‘and such disease or infection as may naturally result therefrom.’ It can make no difference whether the results are usual or unusual, if there is a direct causal connection ⁵ between the injury and the disease, so that the disease is directly attributable to the injury. 177 Md. at 269 , 9 A.2d 604 . And, quoting from Baber v. Knipp & Sons, 164 Md. 55, 67 , 163 A. 862, 867 (1933), the Court said: It would seem to be established in this state in workmen’s compensation cases that ‘proximate cause’ means that the result could have been caused by the accident and that there has not intervened, between the accident and the result, any other efficient cause.

Lidston, 177 Md. at 269 , 9 A.2d 604 . More recently, in Young v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity, 303 Md. 182 , 492 A.2d 1270 (1985), involving a claim that the claimant’s suicide was caused by an earlier compensable injury and its sequelae, this Court described the appropriate test in consequential injury cases as one of “proximate cause,” id. at 191 , 492 A.2d 1270 , and concluded: Consequently, the allegations set forth an unbroken chain of proximate causation which continues from the emotional trauma suffered in the assault arising out of and in the course of Young’s employment on to and through the attempted suicide. Under Young’s pleading the injuries suffered in the suicide attempt are an aggravation of the work-related injury. Id. at 193 , 492 A.2d 1270 .

Similarly, complications flowing directly from treatment of a compensable injury are covered by the Act, even if the complications result from negligent medical treatment. See Nazario v. Washington Adv. Hosp., 45 Md.App. 243 , 412 A.2d 1271 (1980). This principle is, of course, entirely consistent with the concept of proximate cause that ordinarily applies in tort cases to hold an original tortfeasor responsible not only for injuries caused but also for the consequences of negligent treatment of those injuries.

Cf. Morgan v. Cohen, 309 Md. 304, 310 , 523 A.2d 1003 (1987). In 1 Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation § 13.11 (1993) the author states: ⁶ The basic rule is that a subsequent injury, whether an aggravation of the original injury or a new and distinct injury, is compensable if it is the direct and natural result of a compensable primary injury. As Professor Larson points out, ordinary rules of proximate cause must be modified for application to original injury workers’ compensation cases, because contributory negligence is not an intervening cause that will break a chain of causation in a compensation case, and because adherence to the statutory criteria of “arising out of and in the course of employment” may produce results that would differ from those flowing from the application of a traditional proximate cause standard.

Larson, supra, § 6.60. With respect to consequential injuries, Professor Larson recognizes that these injuries may not readily fit ordinary concepts of proximate cause or the statutory requirement that the injury arise out of and in the course of the employment. He suggests that consequential injuries should ordinarily be compensable unless caused by intentional conduct of the claimant that is expressly or impliedly prohibited by the employer. Larson, § 13.11(d).

To accomplish this end, Professor Larson recommends adoption of a concept of “quasi-course of employment,” described as follows: Since, in the strict sense, none of the consequential injuries we are concerned with are in the course of employment, it becomes necessary to contrive a new concept, which we may for convenience call ‘quasi-course of employment.’ By this expression is meant activities undertaken by the employee following upon his injury which, although they take place outside the time and space limits of the employment, and would not be considered employment activities for usual purposes, are nevertheless related to the employment in the sense that they are necessary or reasonable activities that would not have been undertaken but for the compensable injury. ‘Reasonable’ at this point relates not to the method used, but to the category of activity itself____ Quasi-course activities in this sense would include, for example, making a ⁷ trip to the doctor’s office and reaching for aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Id. (Footnote omitted.) Applying this concept to the category of secondary injury cases involving accidents that occur while going to or coming from a doctor’s office or a rehabilitation activity, Professor Larson concludes that the “better view” is to hold such accidents compensable as a consequence of the first accident. Id. at § 13.13.

He concedes that the case for compensability is made stronger if the journey takes place immediately after the first injury occurs, or where the prior injury itself contributes to the happening of the second accident, but concludes that even in the absence of those factors, the second accident should be compensable. In so stating, Professor Larson approves the rationale employed by the Supreme Court of Kansas in Taylor v. Centex Construction Company, 191 Kan. 130 , 379 P.2d 217 (1963). The [Kansas] court noted that the employer is under a statutory duty to furnish medical care, and that the employee is similarly under a duty to submit to reasonable medical treatment under the act. The provisions of the