Richardson v. Home Mutual Life Insurance

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant, a workman injured on the job, applied for compensation and on May 15, 1962, the Workmen’s Compensation Commission found that he had “sustained a permanent partial disability under ‘Other Cases’ amounting to 80% industrial loss of use of his body as a result of the injury to his back, spine, pelvis, hips and legs, on December 27, 1960; and finds on the fourth issue that 20% of such disability is reasonably attributable to the accidental injury on December 27, 1960, and 40% thereof is due to a preexisting disease and 20% thereof is due to physical conditions unrelated to the aforesaid accidental injury,” and ordered that compensation for temporary total disability terminate on May 1, 1961, and payments for permanent partial disability at the rate of $25.00 a week be made, beginning May 2,1961, not to exceed the total of $2,500. On June 13, 1962, the appellant entered an appeal to the Superior Court of Baltimore City and, pursuant to Md. Rule B2 e, filed a petition setting forth “the action appealed from, the ²⁵⁴ error committed by the agency in taking such action, and the relief sought * * *.” The petition alleged that the Commission erred on the facts and the law in failing to find that the petitioner sustained (a) “a permanent disability” in excess of 80% industrial loss and (b) “a permanent total disability,” and stated that the petitioner “has taken an appeal in order to have this case tried de novo before a court and jury to determine the nature and extent of permanent disability * * *.” The jury, answering two issues, found that although the appellant was 100% disabled none of the disability was attributable to the accident. To us the appellant argues earnestly that on appeal from the Commission the trial court could try only the issue or issues raised by the appealing party, and, in the absence of an appeal or cross-appeal by the other party, cannot try any issue sought to be raised by it.

The product of this argument is the claim that because the employer did not appeal, the claimant has a vested interest in the award .to him by the Commission of 20% permanent partial disability attributable to the accident and that, while he can seek by appeal to raise that disability to a ceiling of 100% from a floor of 20%, it cannot be lowered. There is strong indication that this contention is unsound. Md. Rules B1 through B12 govern the procedural aspects of appeals from the Commission to the trial court, but Code (1957), Art. 101, Sec. 56 (a), grants appeals and controls substantive rights and obligations flowing therefrom. 1 Hensley v. Bethesda Metal Co., 230 Md. 556 . Sec. 56 (a) provides that “[a]ny employer, employee, beneficiary or person feeling aggrieved by any decision of the Commission” may have the decision reviewed by a geographically appropriate common law court “and the court shall determine whether the Commission has justly considered all the facts concerning the injury, whether it has exceeded the powers granted it by the article, and whether ²⁵⁵ it has misconstrued the law and facts applicable in the case decided.” The section goes on to say “[u]pon the hearing of such an appeal the court shall, upon motion of either party filed with the clerk of the court according to the practice in civil cases, submit to a jury any question of fact involved in such case * * *.” The proceedings are directed to be informal and summary.

Although the statute does not use the term, its directions would seem to contemplate a trial which essentially is de novo (as the appeal of the appellant seemed to recognize). Schemmel v. Gatch & Sons etc. Co., 164 Md. 671, 674 ; 6 Md. L. Rev. 316 , 321. Rule B43 of the Rules of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City (which does not conflict with any of Md. Rules B1 through B12 which are silent on the subject) requires the appellant in a compensation appeal to submit proposed issues within fifteen days after the filing of the record, and then provides : “Within thirty days after the record is filed, the appellee shall file his proposed issues, and any exceptions to issues proposed by the appellant; and the appellant shall have fifteen days after the filing of the appellee’s proposed issues within which to file exceptions thereto.” The cases at least suggest that the appellant is wrong in his contention and that the lower court did not err in submitting the employer’s issues as to the existence and extent of disability to the jury, inasmuch as that was one of the questions as to which there was evidence before the Commission. Beth.

Shipyard v. Damasiewicz, 187 Md. 474, 483 ; Jackson v. Beth.-Spar. Pt. Shipyard, 189 Md. 583, 589 ; Cabell Con. Blk.

Co. v. Yarborough, 192 Md. 360, 369 ; Albert P. Goetze, Inc. v. Pistorio, 201 Md. 152 . We need not, and do not, decide the point, because it is not properly before us in this case. The record makes it clear that the appellant did not adequately make or preserve objections to the issues on which the case went to trial or to the submission to the jury of the question of the extent of disability and its relation to the industrial accident. The employer filed its issues on July 17, 1962, and the claimant filed his the following day.

Each filed exceptions to the issues proposed by the other. Judge Byrnes sustained all excep ²⁵⁶ tions with leave' to each to file amended issues. On