Pro-Football, Inc. v. McCants

BARBERA, J. Darnerien McCants, Respondent, played wide receiver for the Washington Redskins professional football team between 2002 and 2004. Respondent sustained six injuries while playing for the Redskins on four separate occasions during the 2003 and 2004 National Football League (NFL) season. Consequently, Respondent filed with the Maryland Workers Compensation Commission (the Commission) six separate claims against his employer, Petitioner, Pro-Football, Inc., d/b/a The Washington Redskins, to recover compensation for those injuries. The Commission denied five of Respondent’s claims on the ground that he was not a “covered employee” under § 9-203 of the Maryland Code (1999, 2008 Repl.Vol.), Labor and Employment Article, 1 because he was working for the Reds ²⁷⁴ kins outside of the State when he sustained the injuries underlying the claims.

Respondent petitioned for judicial review of the Commission’s decision to the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, which affirmed. The Court of Special Appeals reversed the decision in an unreported opinion, holding that Respondent was a “covered employee” within the meaning of the law. Petitioner thereafter filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with this Court asking us to determine whether a football player employed by the Washington Redskins is a “covered employee,” and therefore entitled to avail himself of Maryland’s workers’ compensation laws, when in ²⁷⁵ jured while practicing and playing football outside of Maryland. We answer that question in the affirmative.

I. Petitioner is a Maryland corporation that operates the Washington Redskins football team, which plays in the National Football League. The team name is a bit of a misnomer, at least for present purposes, as the Redskins maintains a minimal presence in Washington D.C. 2 Instead, the Redskins plays half of its yearly, twenty-game football schedule (two preseason games and eight regular-season games) at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland. The remaining games are played in stadiums at different locations around the country. The Redskins maintains its corporate presence in offices in Ashburn, Virginia, and prepares at the team’s practice facility, also located in Ashburn.

In 2001, the Redskins drafted Respondent in the NFL’s college draft to play for the team. Shortly after being drafted, Respondent signed a standard NFL player contract. The contract stipulated, among other things, that Respondent was being employed as a “skilled football player.” As part of that employment, Respondent agreed to “report promptly for and participate fully in [the team’s] official mandatory mini-camp(s), official preseason training camp, all [team] meetings and practice sessions.” The contract also required Respondent to report for “all pre-season, regular season, and postseason football games scheduled for or by [the team].” From 2002 to 2004 Respondent played in 34 football games as a member of the Redskins team. In 2002, he played eight of those games at FedEx Field in Maryland and six at stadiums in other states.

In 2003, he played seven games in Maryland and eight games in other states. In 2004, he played three games in Maryland and two games in other states. In total, Respondent played eighteen games over a span of three ²⁷⁶ football seasons in Maryland and the remaining sixteen games in other states. Respondent has alleged that, during the 2003 and 2004 football season, he sustained multiple accidental injuries while engaged in either team practices or games for the Redskins. 3 On October 5, 2003, Respondent injured his neck after making a catch during a game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

On October 20, 2003, he injured his right ankle, left shoulder, and right shoulder after being tackled in a game in Buffalo, New York. On December 27, 2003, he injured his left shoulder while playing in a game at FedEx Field. And on August 17, 2004, Respondent injured his right knee and right ankle during a practice session in Ashburn, Virginia. On April 18, 2007, Respondent filed with the Commission a separate claim for each of those six injuries.

He filed claim B678845 for the left shoulder injury sustained at FedEx Field; B678846 for the right knee and right ankle injuries sustained at the Redskins’ practice facility in Ashburn, Virginia; B678848 for the neck injury sustained in the game in Philadelphia; B678849 for the left shoulder injury sustained at the game in Buffalo; B678850 for the right ankle injury sustained in the game in Buffalo; and B678851 for the right shoulder injury sustained in the game in Buffalo. All six claims came on for a hearing before the Commission on July 16, 2008. At the hearing, the Redskins raised four issues in connection with Respondent’s claims: 1) Respondent’s injuries were not accidental injuries that arose out of his employment with the team; 2) Respondent’s subsequent disability was not a result of the injuries; 3) Respondent’s claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations; and 4) the Commission did not possess jurisdiction over the five claims that involved out-of-state injuries. After hearing argument on the matter, the Commission determined that it did not possess jurisdiction to hear any of the five claims that ²⁷⁷ were based on out-of-state injuries — B678846, B678848, B678849, B678850, and B678851 — seemingly because, in relation to those injuries, Respondent was not a “covered employee” within the meaning of § 9-203(a).

The Commission therefore dismissed, for lack of jurisdiction, all the claims except B678845. 4 Respondent sought judicial review of the Commission’s decision, in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County. 5 At a one-day trial on the matter on June 16, 2010, the parties disputed whether Respondent was a “covered employee”, as that term is used in § 9-203(a), when he was injured while playing football games in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, respectively. Section 9-203(a) provides three methods by which an individual qualifies as a “covered employee”: 1) when ²⁷⁸ working for an employer “in this State,” § 9—203(a)(1); 2) when working for an employer “outside of this State on a casual, incidental, or occasional basis if the employer regularly employs the individual within this State,” § 9—203(a)(2); or, 3) when working for an employer “wholly outside the United States under a contract of employment made in this State for the work to be done wholly outside of the United States,” § 9-203(a)(3). The parties argued before the Circuit Court whether Respondent came within the purview of § 9-203(a)(2) when he practiced and played in football games outside of Maryland; that is, whether his playing in games at FedEx Field constituted regular employment in the State and his practice time in Virginia and participation in games outside of Maryland was work “outside of this State on a casual, incidental, or occasional basis.” Respondent took the position that he was employed by the Redskins “to play in NFL games,” the bulk of which took place in Landover, Maryland. According to Respondent, his time in Virginia spent practicing football was merely “preparatory to performing in those NFL games” and therefore “incidental” to Respondent’s work.

Moreover, according to Respondent, because the Redskins seasonally play in ten NFL games in Maryland and one NFL game in each of ten other jurisdictions, any NFL game he played outside of Maryland was merely occasional within the meaning of § 9-203(a)(2). Respondent therefore asserted that he was a “covered employee” because he was regularly employed in Maryland and injured while working “outside of this State on a casual, incidental, or occasional basis.” The Redskins countered, arguing that the bulk of Respondent’s job took place in Virginia. 6 The Redskins specifically ²⁷⁹ asserted that Respondent’s employment with the team consisted primarily of practice and preparatory activities, including weight-training and “viewing of films,” all of which took place in Virginia. At most, according to the Redskins, Respondent’s connection to Maryland consisted of “riding on the bus and appearing at FedEx Field possibly eight times per year.” Consequently, because of its sheer bulk, Respondent’s time in Virginia could not be characterized as “incidental” under § 9-203(a)(2) and Respondent accordingly did not qualify as a “covered employee.” The Circuit Court agreed with the Redskins. The court found that Respondent was not regularly employed in Maryland because the scope of his employment required his presence in Maryland “eight times a year” and in Virginia “several hundred days a year.” Instead, because of the “substantial” time Respondent spent in Virginia, the court concluded that Virginia was the place of Respondent’s regular employment and Respondent’s presence in Maryland was merely incidental to that employment.

Consequently, the Circuit Court affirmed the decision of the Commission that there existed no jurisdiction to hear Respondent’s claim. Respondent noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. In an unreported opinion, that Court reversed the Commission’s decision, holding that Respondent was a “covered employee” under § 9-203. The Court of Special Appeals noted that the amount of time Respondent spent in Virginia did not determine the issue because that time was spent practicing for football games and, according to the Court, “practicing is incidental to the main purpose of [the] employment: to play in football games.” The Court therefore held that Respondent “was regularly employed in Maryland because he had an ongoing relationship with his employer, a Maryland corporation, for the purpose of playing in football games, more of which took place in Maryland than in any other state.” ²⁸⁰ The Redskins petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari, which we granted, Pro-Football, Inc. v. McCants, 424 Md. 628 , 37 A.3d 317 (2012), to address the following issue: Whether the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission has jurisdiction over injuries sustained by a professional football player when playing a game outside of the State of Maryland.

II. “When an individual seeks to secure workers’ compensation coverage for an injury sustained on the job, the first question to be resolved is whether he or she is a ‘covered employee.’ ” W.M. Schlosser Co. v. Uninsured Employers’ Fund, 414 Md. 195, 206 , 994 A.2d 956, 963 (2010). This is because the Commission has jurisdiction to hear only those claims brought by a “covered employee” as that term is employed in the Workers’ Compensation Act. See generally §§ 9-709 through 9-711. Whether an individual is a “covered employee” depends on whether the individual is an employee of the employer, § 9-202(a); and on the site of the employment, see § 9-203; see also McElroy Truck Lines, Inc. v. Pohopek, 375 Md. 574, 581 , 826 A.2d 474, 478 (2003).

As to the site of employment, “an individual who is employed wholly outside of this State is not a covered employee,” § 9-203(c), and an individual whose work takes place entirely “in this State” is a covered employee, § 9-203(a)(1). The question is a closer one when an individual’s employment necessitates work both inside and outside of Maryland. Under § 9-203(a)(2), an individual working across state lines may qualify as a covered employee if the individual works “regularly” in Maryland and on a “casual, incidental, or occasional basis” outside of the state. An individual who only works “intermittently or temporarily” in Maryland is not a covered employee if five other conditions, not pertinent here, are met.

See § 9-203(b)(i)-(v). The parties agree that Respondent is an employee of the Redskins. The parties further agree that Respondent works ²⁸¹ neither wholly inside nor wholly outside of Maryland. The parties’ dispute centers on whether Respondent’s interstate employment qualifies him as a “covered employee” under § 9-203(a)(2).

The parties specifically dispute whether Respondent’s work in Maryland, i.e. participating in ten football games at FedEx Field in Landover, constitutes regular employment in the state; and whether the substantial time Respondent spends in Virginia practicing and preparing for football games may be characterized as “casual, incidental, or occasional” under § 9-203(a)(2). The Redskins argues that Respondent was not regularly employed in Maryland and his practice time in Virginia was not incidental to his employment. Central to this two-faceted argument is that Respondent spent most of his time as an employee of the Redskins practicing and preparing in Virginia for football games. Because this preparation constitutes “the bulk” of Respondent’s time engaged in employment duties, the Redskins asserts that the location of those preparatory duties is the place where Respondent was regularly employed— Virginia.

The Redskins further asserts that, because Respondent’s employment contract requires him to engage in a “constant and routine performance of essential employment functions” (ie. practice) in Virginia, Respondent’s time in Virginia cannot be characterized as casual, incidental, or occasional. Respondent disagrees, arguing that the essence of his job is to “catch a football” in football games. The majority of Redskins football games taking place in Maryland, Respondent asserts that the majority of his work takes place in Maryland, and therefore he is regularly employed in Maryland. Respondent further asserts that the “sole reason for practice is to play in regular season games.” In support of this assertion, Respondent points out that, under the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, football players receive their negotiated salary as compensation for playing in regular season games and only receive a per diem for attending practices.

As a result, Respondent argues that practice is only an incidental or ancillary component of his ultimate job and, ²⁸² therefore, the amount of time he spent practicing in Virginia does not prevent him from being a “covered employee.” The parties’ dispute requires us to determine whether Respondent was “regularly employ[ed]” in Maryland such that, in this case, his activity in Virginia is “causal, incidental, or occasional” within the meaning of § 9-203(a)(2). When interpreting a statute, our primary goal is to ascertain legislative intent. W.M. Schlosser Co., 414 Md. at 203 , 994 A.2d at 961 . Construction of a statute begins and ends with the plain meaning, when that meaning is clear and unambiguous.

Id. at 203-04 , 994 A.2d at 961 . Moreover, when we set out to interpret a provision of the Workers’ Compensation Act, we construe its provisions “liberally, where possible, in order to effectuate the broad remedial purpose of the statutory scheme.” Uninsured Employers’ Fund v. Danner, 388 Md. 649, 659 , 882 A.2d 271, 277 (2005). We bear in mind, too, that the posture of the instant appeal requires our review of a Commission decision first reviewed by the Circuit Court during a de novo trial proceeding. See § 9—745(d); see also General Motors Corp. v. Bark, 79 Md.App. 68, 73 , 555 A.2d 542, 544 (1989) (noting that “an appeal to the circuit court from a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Commission is totally different” from an appeal taken generally from an administrative decision under the Maryland Administrative Procedure Act).

We are not tasked, however, with review of the Commission’s or Circuit Court’s factual findings, to which we would owe deference. W.M. Schlosser Co., 414 Md. at 205 , 994 A.2d at 962 (quoting Md. Aviation Admin. v. Noland, 386 Md. 556, 571 , 873 A.2d 1145, 1154 (2005)). Instead, we are called upon to determine whether each respective tribunal was legally correct in its construction and application of § 9-203. Cosby v. Dep’t of Human Res., 425 Md. 629, 638 , 42 A.3d 596, 602 (2012) (quotation marks omitted).

In that mode, we do not interpret the Workers’ Compensation Act in a vacuum; rather, we review the Commission’s interpretation of a statute it enforces. We “deter ²⁸³ mine if the administrative decision is premised upon an erroneous conclusion of law.” W.M. Schlosser Co., 414 Md. at 204 , 994 A.2d at 962 (2010) (quoting Md. Aviation Admin., 386 Md. at 571 , 873 A.2d at 1154 ). That determination is not made de novo, substituting our judgment for that of the Commission. Motor Vehicle Admin. v. Carpenter, 424 Md. 401, 413 , 36 A.3d 439, 446 (2012).

We recognize the Commission’s expertise in the