Norman-Bradford v. Balt. Co. Public Schools

Panel: Wright, Nazarian, Leahy, JJ. Nazarian, J. ²³⁷ Claudette Norman-Bradford suffered an accidental injury while working for the Board of Education of Baltimore County (the "Employer"). She filed a claim with the Workers' Compensation Commission (the "Commission") and was awarded workers' compensation benefits. She also applied for accidental disability retirement benefits from the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ("SRPS"), but was granted an ordinary disability retirement instead.

The Employer petitioned the Commission to offset Ms. Norman-Bradford's ordinary disability retirement benefits against her workers' compensation benefits, citing the statutory offset provision in Maryland Code (1991, 2016 Repl. Vol.), § 9-610(a)(1) Labor and Employment Article ("LE"). The Commission decided that the Employer was not entitled to an offset, and the Employer petitioned for judicial review in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. After a hearing on cross-motions for summary judgment, the circuit court granted the Employer's motion and reversed the Commission's decision after finding that the benefits Ms. Norman-Bradford received were "similar," which triggered the statutory offset.

Ms. Norman-Bradford appeals and we affirm. I. BACKGROUND Ms. Norman-Bradford worked as a para-educator at Deer Park Elementary School in Baltimore County. On January 15, 2010, she tripped on a mat and fell while taking students outside for a fire drill. There is no dispute that as a result of the fall, she suffered injuries to her back, right ankle, hip, knee, and wrist.

After the accident, Ms. Norman-Bradford filed a claim for workers' compensation benefits. Her pre-accident medical history ²³⁸ included neck, head, and back injuries from various accidents and diagnoses of fibromyalgia and hypertension. On May 4, 2010, the Commission held a hearing and found that she had sustained a compensable accidental injury, awarded her medical treatment and compensation for temporary total disability benefits, and concluded that her fibromyalgia diagnosis was not caused by her accident. The Employer appealed the Commission's decision to the circuit court and the court reversed, finding that Ms. Norman-Bradford's fibromyalgia was causally related to her accidental injury as an aggravation of a pre-existing condition.

The following year, Ms. Norman-Bradford applied for accidental disability retirement benefits through the SRPS. The State Medical Board (the "Board") determined that based on the medical evidence she submitted, Ms. Norman-Bradford was permanently disabled and unable to perform ⁷⁵ her job, and recommended that the SRPS approve her claim for ordinary disability retirement benefits. But the Board denied her claim for accidental disability benefits after finding that the evidence didn't prove that the January 15, 2010 accidental injury caused her permanent disability. The SRPS adopted the Board's recommendation, denied Ms. Norman-Bradford's accidental disability benefits request, and awarded ordinary disability benefits.

The Commission held a hearing in November 2014 to determine whether Ms. Norman-Bradford was permanently and totally disabled, and within that broader question to resolve thirteen issues relating to the nature and extent of her disability. The Commission found that she was not permanently and totally disabled, but did find that she suffered from an overall forty-four percent industrial loss of use of her body-twenty-five percent from her accidental injury (fibromyalgia, back, neck, right foot, hip, knee, and wrist, and psychiatric); fifteen percent from her pre-existing conditions (hypertension, psychiatric, fibromyalgia, back, and neck); and four percent from a subsequent accident or deterioration of a pre-existing condition (psychiatric). The Commission ordered the Employer to ²³⁹ pay Ms. Norman-Bradford for permanent partial disability at the rate of $307 per week for 125 weeks. Based on that finding, the Employer requested a hearing to determine its right to offset Ms. Norman-Bradford's ordinary disability retirement benefits with her workers' compensation award, pursuant to LE § 9-610(a)(1).

On March 4, 2015, the Commission concluded that the Employer was not entitled to offset Ms. Norman-Bradford's benefits because her "benefits are not a similar benefit." The Employer sought judicial review of the Commission's decision. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment that focused on the Commission's interpretation of the term "similar benefits" in LE § 9-610(a)(1). After a hearing, the circuit court reversed the Commission's decision, found that the Employer was entitled to the statutory weekly offset under LE § 9-610, and granted the Employer's motion. Ms. Norman-Bradford filed a timely notice of appeal.

We supply additional facts below as necessary.

II

DISCUSSION Ms. Norman-Bradford argues on appeal 1 first that the circuit court erred in finding that LE § 9-610, not § 29-118 of the State Personnel and Pension Article ("SP"), governs the Employer's right to an offset, and second that even if ²⁴⁰ LE § 9-610 applies, the court erred in finding that her ⁷⁶ ordinary disability retirement benefits and workers' compensation benefits are "similar." The Employer contends the circuit court correctly found that LE § 9-610 is the applicable statute and properly determined that the Employer is entitled to an offset because Ms. Norman-Bradford's ordinary disability retirement benefits and workers' compensation benefits are similar. We review a trial court's grant of a motion for summary judgment de novo , without deference to the legal decisions of the Commission or circuit court. Long v. Workers' Ins. Fund , 225 Md. App. 48 , 57, 123 A.3d 562 (2015).

A. LE § 9-610 Is The Appropriate Offset Provision. Ms. Norman-Bradford contends first that the circuit court erred by applying LE § 9-610 instead of SP § 29-118 to determine whether the Employer was entitled to offset her workers' compensation benefits with her ordinary disability retirement benefits. This matters because, she says, SP § 29-118 wouldn't allow the Employer to offset her ordinary disability retirement benefits and she'd get to collect both-it only allows offsets for accidental or special retirement benefits. But SP § 29-118(a)(2)(i)(2) excludes "a retiree of the Employees' Pension System or the Employees' Retirement system who receives a disability retirement benefit as a former employee of a county board of education" from that division, and states that those employees are subject to LE § 9-610.

Ms. Norman-Bradford relies instead on State Retirement & Pension Sys. of Md. v. Thompson , 368 Md. 53 , 792 A.2d 277 (2002), which construed an earlier version of SP § 29-118 that provided for the reduction of a "disability retirement benefit" without reference to "accidental or special disability retirement benefits." We faced this question last year and decided that a 2004 amendment to SP § 29-118 limited offsets under that provision to claimants who have been awarded accidental or special retirement benefits, and thus that SP § 29-118's ²⁴¹ offset provisions do not apply to members of the Teacher's Pension Plan who receive disability retirement benefits. See Zakwieia v. Baltimore Cty., Bd. of Educ. , 231 Md. App. 644 , 650 n.2, 153 A.3d 888 (2017). The Court of Appeals agreed with us in Reger v. Washington Cty. Bd. of Educ. , 455 Md. 68 , 166 A.3d 142 (2017), a case decided after the briefs were filed in this case but before argument, holding that "under the statutory scheme created by the amendment, which remains in effect today, a retiree who was employed by a county board of education who receives a disability benefit through that employer remains subject to the offset provision in LE § 9-610, and not the offset in SP § 29-118." Id. at 115-16, 166 A.3d 142 (footnotes omitted).

Ms. Norman-Bradford fits this description exactly, and the circuit court was correct to apply LE § 9-610 to assess the Employer's right to an offset. B. The Workers' Compensation Benefits And Ordinary Retirement Benefits Awarded To Ms. Norman-Bradford Were "Similar" And Subject To Offset. Second , Ms. Norman-Bradford contends that even if LE § 9-610 applies, the court erred in concluding that her workers' compensation benefits were "similar" to her ordinary disability retirement benefits. This notion of similarity comes right from the statute: (a)(1) Except for benefits subject to an offset under § 29-118 of the State Personnel and Pensions Article, if a statute, charter, ordinance, resolution, regulation, or policy, regardless of whether part of a pension system, provides a benefit to a covered employee of a governmental ⁷⁷ unit or a quasi-public corporation that is subject to this title under § 9-201(2) of this title or, in case of death, to the dependents of the covered employee, payment of the benefit by the employer satisfies, to the extent of the payment, the liability of the employer and the Subsequent Injury Fund for payment of similar benefits under this title.

LE § 9-610 (emphasis added). Ms. Norman-Bradford contends that ordinary retirement benefits are wage loss benefits and workers' compensation ²⁴² benefits are loss of earning capacity benefits, and thus not "similar" benefits. The Employer responds that the term "similar" refers to the nature of the benefit awarded to the employee ( i.e. , disability benefits), not the nature of the underlying injury , and that if the offset were intended to apply only where the injury underlying both benefits was similar, the Legislature would have said so. The Legislature hasn't said so, but the Court of Appeals held in Reger that