NATIONAL CORPORATION FOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP, MEADOWOOD TOWNHOUSE, INC. v. Keller

725 A.2d 563, 353 Md. 171, 1999 Md. LEXIS 107
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedMarch 10, 1999
Docket52, September Term, 1998
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 725 A.2d 563 (NATIONAL CORPORATION FOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP, MEADOWOOD TOWNHOUSE, INC. v. Keller) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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NATIONAL CORPORATION FOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP, MEADOWOOD TOWNHOUSE, INC. v. Keller, 725 A.2d 563, 353 Md. 171, 1999 Md. LEXIS 107 (Md. 1999).

Opinion

WILNER, Judge.

The issue before us is whether, for purposes of Maryland Code, § 9-632(c) of the Labor and Employment Article, Kenneth Keller is a “surviving dependent” of his mother, Shirley Keller, and, as a result, is entitled to receive the permanent partial disability benefits that otherwise would have been awarded to Ms. Keller had she not died prior to the entry of the award. We shall hold that he was not a surviving dependent and, for that reason, shall reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals in Meadowood v. Keller, 119 Md.App. 566, 705 A.2d 142 (1998).

BACKGROUND

The relevant facts, which are not in substantial dispute, are well-summarized by Judge Hollander for the Court of Special Appeals. On February 19,1990, Ms. Keller suffered a serious accidental injury to her neck and shoulder in the course of her employment by petitioner. After the accident, Ms. Keller’s adult son, Kenneth, who was living in California, came to Maryland to care for her, and, as a result, became financially dependent on his mother. At some point, Ms. Keller filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits, seeking both temporary total and permanent partial disability benefits. She received an award of temporary total disability benefits, but on February 1, 1994, while her claim for permanent partial *173 disability benefits was still pending before the Workers’ Compensation Commission, Ms. Keller died of sudden cardiac arrest. Three important facts are conceded for purposes of this appeal: (1) that her death was completely unrelated to the 1990 accident; (2) that at the time of the accident, Kenneth was not financially dependent on his mother; and (3) that at the time of her death, he was financially dependent upon her.

In February, 1995—a year after Ms. Keller’s death—the Workers’ Compensation Commission found that she had sustained a permanent partial disability amounting to a 75% industrial loss of use of her body as a result of the 1990 accidental injury. In July, 1995, following a hearing, the Commission determined that Kenneth qualified as a surviving dependent of Ms. Keller and, pursuant to § 9-632, awarded him the permanent partial disability benefits of $180/week for 500 weeks that otherwise would have been awarded to Ms. Keller. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County affirmed that determination, and the Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment of the circuit court.

DISCUSSION

The issue before us is purely one of statutory construction. It involves directly § 9-632 of the Labor and Employment Article, but it implicates as well a number of other sections of that article, principally §§ 9-640, 9-646, and 9-678 through 9-686. To put those statutes in a proper perspective, it is important to keep in mind that the workers’ compensation law provides benefits for a number of different kinds of disabilities arising from job-related injuries and diseases, among which are weekly monetary benefits for temporary disability (both partial and total), permanent disability (both partial and total), hernia, and death. Benefits for disability and hernia are awarded to the injured employee; by virtue of §§ 9-632, 9-640, and 9-646, however, the right to collect those benefits survives if the employee dies before they are paid in full from a cause that is not itself compensable under the Act. In that event, the remaining benefits payable under the award are paid to the employee’s surviving dependents or, if there are no *174 such dependents, to other persons designated in those sections. Death benefits obviously cannot be awarded to the employee but are instead awarded to persons who were dependent on the deceased employee, in accordance with §§ 9— 678 through 9-686.

As a result of these provisions, it is possible, when an employee is injured in a job-related accident and then dies, for a dependent of that employee to collect workers’ compensation benefits in either, but not both, of two different settings. One setting is that provided for in §§ 9-632, 9-640, and 9-646—the survival sections applicable, respectively, to benefits for permanent partial disability, permanent total disability, and hernia. The relevant parts of those statutes are identically worded. Section 9-632(b)—the section applicable in this case—provides that “if a covered employee dies from a cause that is not compensable under this title, the right to compensation that is payable under this Part IV of this subtitle [ permanent partial disability] and unpaid on the date of death, survives in accordance with this section.” (Emphasis added.) Section 9-632(c) states that, “if there are surviving dependents of the covered employee, the right to compensation survives to the surviving dependents as the Commission may determine.” Subsections (d) and (e) provide for what happens when there are no surviving dependents: if, on the date of the employee’s death, the employee had a legal obligation to support a surviving spouse, the right to compensation survives to the surviving spouse and the. surviving minor children of the employee; in the absence of such an obligation to a surviving spouse, the right to compensation survives only to the surviving minor children.

As we pointed out in City of Baltimore v. Cline, 266 Md. 42, 291 A.2d 464 (1972), quoting from the opinion of the Court of Special Appeals in that case, the right to compensation by dependents under what is now § 9-632 is derivative: “it is not the death which is compensable under the statute but rather the injury, and it is the right of the workman himself to collect the benefits unpaid from that injury at the time of his death which survives. Those who take, in the event of his death, *175 take under him, and not independently.” Id. at 44, 291 A.2d at 465.

The second setting, dealt with in §§ 9-678 through 9-686, arises when the employee dies from a cause that is compensable, i.e., when he or she dies from the job-related injury. In that setting, it is the death of the employee that is the compensable event, and the right of the dependent to collect the death benefit is direct, not derivative. Sea Gull Specialty Co. v. Snyder, 151 Md. 78, 134 A. 133 (1926). As the Court of Special Appeals explained in Cline v. City of Baltimore, 13 Md.App. 337, 341, 283 A.2d 188 (1971), aff'd per curiam, City of Baltimore v. Cline, supra, 266 Md. 42, 291 A.2d 464, where death occurs as the result of the compensable injury “the right of the surviving dependents to death benefits is separate and independent of the injured employee’s rights” and “is an independent right derived from statute, and not from the rights of the decedent.”

Section 9-632 does not specify directly whether dependency is to be determined as of the time of the accidental injury or as of the time the employee dies.

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725 A.2d 563, 353 Md. 171, 1999 Md. LEXIS 107, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-corporation-for-housing-partnership-meadowood-townhouse-inc-v-md-1999.