Potter v. Bethesda Fire Department, Inc.

CHARLES E. ORTH, Jr., Judge, Specially Assigned. I This case has been struggling through the Workmen’s Compensation Commission and various courts of this State since Theodore E. Potter was injured in January 1978. Its history to 5 February 1985 was recounted in Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dept., Inc., 302 Md. 281 , 487 A.2d 288 (1985). Appellant, Theodore E. Potter, was a salaried firefighter employed by Bethesda Fire Department, Inc. He filed a claim with the Workmen’s Compensation Commission as a result of injuries sustained by him.

Appellee, Insurance Company of North America, was the insurer of the employer for that injury. Potter reinjured his back. Montgomery County as a self-insurer was the employer’s insurer for that injury. Potter retired under the Montgomery County disability retirement program.

Appellees, Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., Montgomery County, and Insurance Company of North America, contended they were entitled to a set-off pursuant to Maryland Code (1957, 1979 Repl.Vol.) Art. 101, § 33(c) and (d). Their contention was based on the fact that Potter was receiving disability retirement benefits from Montgomery ³⁵⁰ County in excess of any benefits that he was eligible to receive as workmen’s compensation. The Commission denied the right of set-off. Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., and Montgomery County appealed the Commission’s decision to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County.

Named defendants in the appeal were Insurance Company of North America and Potter. The fire company and Montgomery County filed a motion for partial summary judgment based on the claimed statutory set-off. Insurance Company of North America subsequently joined in this motion, and asked that the ruling also apply with respect to the claim in which it was previously ordered to pay benefits for 20% industrial loss of use. The matter came on for hearing in the circuit court.

It ordered that the motion for partial summary judgment be granted “on the question of the applicability of the set-off provisions of Article 101, Section 33 ... to the benefits awarded by the Workmen’s Compensation Commission under its order dated October 6, 1982, and Amended Order of April 20, 1983.” It further ordered, stating “that there appears to be no just cause for delay in entering judgment in this action,” that “the Clerk of the Court [was] ... directed to enter judgment in favor of the employer, Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., and the insurer, Montgomery County, Maryland, on their entitlement to a set-off pursuant to Article 101, Section 33 of the Annotated Code of Maryland.” Insofar as the record before us reflects, the matter otherwise remains open on the docket in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. Potter appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. That court affirmed in Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dept., Inc., 59 Md.App. 228 , 474 A.2d 1365 (1984). We granted Potter’s petition for a writ of certiorari in order that we might address the important public question of whether Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., is a quasi-public corporation within the meaning of Code (1957, 1979 Repl.Vol.) Art. 101, § 21(a)(2).

Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dep't. Inc., 301 Md. 43 , 481 A.2d 803 (1984). 302 Md. at 483-484 . ³⁵¹ We did not reach the important public question. We found that the Court of Special Appeals was without jurisdiction to entertain the appeal. The partial summary judgment from which the appeal was taken was not a judgment certifiable for appeal by then Rule 605(a).

We were obliged to remand the case to the Court of Special Appeals with direction to dismiss the appeal. Id. 302 Md. at 284-287 , 487 A.2d 288 . The open questions were resolved in special verdicts by a jury in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. The jury found that 47% of industrial loss was due to the first injury, that 23% was due to the second injury and that no industrial loss was due to pre-existing conditions.

Judgment to that effect was entered. Potter and the Insurance Company of North America noted an appeal. Subsequently the Court of Special Appeals dismissed the appeal of INA at the insurance company’s request. INA explained that the subject of its appeal was the off-set for pension benefits and, as it understood this issue was the subject of Potter’s appeal, its appeal was superfluous.

Potter and Montgomery County jointly filed a petition for a writ of certiorari. We granted the petition before resolution of the appeal by the Court of Special Appeals, and the writ was issued on our order. We now address “the important public question” which prompted our grant of the first petition for a writ of certiorari, namely, “whether Bethesda Fire Department, Inc., is a quasi-public corporation within the meaning of Code (1957, [1985] Repl.Vol.) Art. 101, § 21(a)(2).” Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dept., Inc., 302 Md. at 284 , 487 A.2d 288 . II Md.Code (1957, 1985 Repl.Vol.) Art. 101, § 33 provides, in relevant part: (c) Whenever by statute, charter, ordinances, resolution, regulation or policy adopted thereunder, whether as part of a pension system or otherwise, any benefit or ³⁵² benefits are furnished employees of employers covered under § 21(a)(2) of this article, ... the benefit or benefits when furnished by the employer shall satisfy and discharge pro tanto or in full as the case may be, the liability or obligation of the employer and the Subsequent Injury Fund for any benefit under this article.

Code, Art. 101, § 21 provides: (a) Coverage of employers.—The following shall constitute employers subject to the provisions of this act: (1) Every person that has in the State one or more employees subject to this act. (2) The State, any agency thereof, and each county, city, town, township, incorporated village, school district, sewer district, drainage district, public or quasi-public corporation, or any other political subdivision of the State that has one or more employees subject to this act. 1 See Art. 101, § 67(2) for the definition of “employer.” It is in accord with § 21(a). “The cardinal rule in the interpretation of statutes is to effectuate the real and actual intention of the Legislature.” ³⁵³ State v. Fabritz, 276 Md. 416, 421 , 348 A.2d 275 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 942 , 96 S.Ct. 1680 , 48 L.Ed.2d 185 (1976). Of course, a statute should be construed according to the ordinary and natural import of its language, since it is the language of the statute which constitutes the primary source for determining the legislative intent. Id.

(citations omitted). Therefore, [w]here there is no ambiguity or obscurity in the language of a statute, there is usually no need to look elsewhere to ascertain the intention of the Legislature. Thus, where statutory language is plain and free from ambiguity and expresses a definite and sensible meaning, courts are not at liberty to disregard the natural import of words with a view towards making the statute express an intention which is different from its plain meaning. Id. at 421-422, 348 A.2d 275 (citations omitted).

But, “[ajdherence to the meaning of words does not require or permit isolation of words from their context ‘xxx [since] the meaning of the plainest words in a statute may be controlled by the context____’ ” In construing statutes, therefore, results that are unreasonable, illogical or inconsistent with common sense should be avoided whenever possible consistent with the statutory language, with the real legislative intention prevailing over the intention indicated by the literal meaning. Id. at 422 , 348 A.2d 275 (citations omitted). It is also a well settled precept that statutes are to be construed reasonably with reference to the purpose to be accomplished, and in light of the evils or mischief sought to be remedied; in other words, every statutory enactment must be “considered in its entirety, and in the context of the purpose underlying [its] enactment.” Id. at 421 , 348 A.2d 275 (citations omitted). Applying these precepts, we need not look beyond the language of the statute.

Section 21(a)(1) concerns private ³⁵⁴ employers. Section 21(a)(2) concerns public employers. In the latter section “quasi-public corporation” appears amidst certain other designations. Common to: all of those other designations is that they are governmental in nature.

See 1 E. McQuillen & J. Dray, The Law of Municipal Corporations §§ 1.19-1.20, 2.03-2.03a, 213 (3rd ed. 1971); H. Bruñe, Maryland Corporation Law and Practice § 2 (rev. ed. 1953); 1 A. Machen, Modern Law of Corporations, § 29 (1908). It is self evident that the State, any agency of the State, a county, a city, a town, a township, an incorporated village, and a public corporation are each within the category of public and governmental. A school district, sewer district and drainage district and other “special function districts,” are considered to be public and governmental bodies. See 0.

Reynolds, Handbook of Local Government Law §§ 11-12 (1982); 3 A. Antieau, Local Government Law § 30 D. 00 (1987); McQuillen & Dray §§ 2.28-2.29. A political subdivision of the State is likewise public and governmental. See, e.g., Md.Code (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.) Art. 24, § 2-101(a)(4) (“ ‘Political subdivision’ includes: (i) A county; (ii) A municipal corporation in the State; (iii) A special taxing district in the State; and (iv) A public corporation of the State.”); Md.Code (1977, 1986 Cum.Supp.) § l-101(k) of the Transportation Article (“ ‘Political subdivision’ includes: (1) Any county or municipal corporation; and (2) Unless the context requires otherwise, any special taxing district.”) Unlike the other designations in § 21(a)(2), a “quasi-public corporation” is not per se public or governmental. On its face, the term connotes that it is not a public corporation but a private one.

But “quasi” indicates that the private corporation has “some resemblance (as in function, effect or status)” to a public corporation. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1981). In other words, “quasi” bespeaks “that one subject resembles another, with which it is compared, in certain characteristics, but that there are intrinsic and material differences between them.” Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979). The language of § 21(a)(2) is free from obscurity or ambiguity; it leaves no ³⁵⁵ room for a notion that the Legislature in its enumeration of employers covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act, intended, in that subsection, to go beyond government employers.

Section 21(a)(2) and § 33(c), read together, show that “quasi-public corporation” is clearly intended to be of this genus. Its designation is immediately followed by the phrase “or any other political subdivision of the State____” (emphasis added). We have considered it in this light in the past. In Frank v. Baltimore County, 284 Md. 655 , 399 A.2d 250 (1979), we spoke of § 33 as applying to “government employees,” id. at 659, 399 A.2d 250 , and to “public employers,” id. at 661 , 399 A.2d 250 .

In City of Baltimore v. Oros, 301 Md. 460 , 483 A.2d 748 (1984), we indicated that an employer under § 21(a)(2) was a “governmental or quasi-governmental agency.” Id. at 466, 483 A.2d 748 . The short of it is, that in enacting § 21(a)(2), the legislative intent, evident on the face of the statute, was to scoop up all the various and sundry bodies of a governmental nature in the diverse system of government existent in Maryland, starting with the State itself, and flowing down to the lowest echelon, and make each of them “employers” in the contemplation of the Workmen’s Compensation Act when such employer had one or more employees. The legislative intent in enacting § 21(a)(2) and § 33(c) then becomes luminously clear. [T]he scheme that unmistakenly emerges is that the General Assembly wished to provide only a single rcovery for a single injury for government employees covered by both a pension plan and workmen’s compensation. Frank v. Baltimore County, 284 Md. at 659 , 399 A.2d 250 .

Consequently, when disability pension benefits exceed workmen’s compensation the latter shall be completely eliminated____ Id. Therefore, any employee benefit provided by a public employer, “whether as part of a [statutorily adopted] pension sys ³⁵⁶ tem or otherwise,” is sufficient to bring section 33 into play, and that under the juxtaposition provided in that section there exists no reason why the employer should not be discharged from his compensation obligation whenever the total amount of any employee benefit, whether furnished entirely or partially by employer funds, is equal to or better than the workmen’s compensation award. Id. at 661 , 399 A.2d 250 (footnote omitted). In Mazor v. State, Dep’t of Correction, 279 Md. 355 , 369 A.2d 82 (1977), we determined that, in such circumstances, “§ 33 entitles the insurer, as well as the employer, to a discharge of its obligation.” Id. at 360, 369 A.2d 82 .

It follows that if the Bethesda Fire Department, Inc. (BFD) was a covered employer under § 21(a)(2), it and its insurers were entitled to a set-off pursuant to § 33(c). But if BFD was not within the ambit of § 21(a)(2), § 33(c) does not apply, and Potter may receive both workmen’s compensation and benefits under the county’s pension plan. Ill It is readily apparent that for BFD to be within the ambit of § 33(c) it must qualify as a “quasi-public corporation.” It obviously does not fall within the other classifications of § 21(a)(2). Therefore, we must determine what a quasi-public corporation is in the contemplation of § 21(a)(2) in order to ascertain whether BFD is within that category. “Quasi-public corporation” is not defined in Article 101 or elsewhere in the Maryland Code nor in the organic laws of this State. 2 In the last 50 years, the term “quasi-public ³⁵⁷ corporation” has appeared in only twelve of the opinions of this Court (in addition to Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dept., Inc., 302 Md. 281 , 487 A.2d 288 ), 3 and in two opinions of the Court of Special Appeals (aside from its aborted opinion in Potter v. Bethesda Fire Dept., Inc., 59 Md.App. 228 , 474 A.2d 1365 ). 4 None of the opinions furnishes a workable definition or give a satisfactory clue as to what is definitively deemed to be a quasi-public corporation, except as to certain railroads.

Perhaps this is so because the term defines itself. A quasi-public corporation is by its very words, not a public corporation, and, thus is a private corporation. But the word “quasi,” as we have seen, denotes that it has the characteristics of a public corporation in function, effect or status. That view is in tune with the scholars.

There are corporations which, when tested by the definitions [of public and private corporations], fall within the class of private corporations, but which, nevertheless, by reason of the nature and extent of their operations and effect on the welfare of the public at large, have been styled quasi-public corporations. 1 W. Fletcher & C. Swearingen, Cyclopedia of the Law of Private Corporations § 63 at 600 (footnote omitted) (1983 Rev.Vol.). “Quasi-public corporations have been defined as private corporations which have accepted from the state the grant ³⁵⁸ of a franchise or contract involving the performance of public duties.” Id. at 601 (footnote omitted). It is not necessary that its charter should have originally contained a grant of power of a nature such as to impose this character upon the corporation, but the nature of the business conducted may later become so affected with a public interest that the corporation thus becomes quasi-public, and it must have entered upon the public service, that is, service to the general public. Id. (footnotes omitted).

Fletcher addresses fire departments specifically: A corporation organized for the protection of the property of fellow citizens from fire is not for private gain and profit of its members but for the public benefit. Accordingly a fire engine company is considered to be a public or quasi-municipal corporation____ Id. at 602 (footnotes omitted). 18 Am.Jur.2d Corporations (1985), puts it this way: The term “quasi-public corporation” is sometimes applied to otherwise private corporations engaged in the business of providing goods and services of a peculiarly public nature. Id. § 31 at 825-826 (footnote omitted). However, it is clear with regard to § 21(a)(2) that the Legislature impressed a further limitation on the meaning of a quasi-public corporation.

It confined such corporations to those of a governmental nature. Not all quasi-public corporations are governmental in nature, but when the types of employers designated as covered by the Act are considered with the immediately following phrase, “or any other