47 A.2d 365 | Md. | 1946
Georgia Townsend, appellant here, was employed by Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, Inc., one of appellees, as a ship fitter. On July 12, 1944, she sustained accidental injuries arising out of and in the course of her employment. She was awarded compensation for temporary total disability for about three months, and on December 4, 1944, the State Industrial Accident Commission, as a result of a hearing, found that her temporary total disability had terminated and that she had sustained permanent partial disability. This permanent partial disability was an impairment of the functions of her left kidney, resulting from the accident.
Flack's 1943 Supplement Annotated Code, Article 101, § 48, Subsec. (3), provides for compensation in cases of disability partial in character but permanent in quality. This was the statute in force at the time of the accident. It has since been amended by the Act of 1945, Chap. 336. The statute, both before and after this amendment, provides that compensation in cases of permanent partial disability shall be 66 2/3 per cent. of the average weekly wages. The maximum weekly compensation was $18 a week, (increased to $20) and the minimum $8 a week, (increased to $10) and the aggregate was $3,816 (increased to $4,240). Then follow a list of specific injuries for each of which the statute fixes the number of weeks for which compensation shall be allowed. Loss or loss of use of kidney is not among the injuries specifically listed. Following the list is another clause headed "Other Cases," which reads as follows: "In all other *410 cases in this class of disability the compensation shall be fifty per centum of the difference between his average weekly wages and his wage-earning capacity thereafter in the same employment, or otherwise, if less than before the accident (but not to exceed eighteen dollars per week), payable during the continuance of such partial disability, but not to exceed three thousand dollars, and, subject to reconsideration of the degree of such impairment by the Commission on its own motion or upon application of any party in interest." The 1945 amendment changes this last section by making the maximum $20 a week and making the total compensation payable $5,000 instead of $3,000. The amendments made by the Act of 1945 are not applicable to the case before us, and do not affect, in any way, the question of construction raised by the appellant here. The changes made are in amounts only.
The Commission allowed the appellant the sum of $2,000 for her permanent partial disability under the "Other Cases" section, and stated in the order that she had no other permanent partial disability. She was given compensation at the rate of $18 per week for a period of 111 1/9 weeks. On appeal to the Baltimore City Court, the case was heard before Chief Judge Smith without a jury. Two issues were presented by appellant, the first being whether she was entitled to receive compensation for more than 111 1/9 weeks under the "Other Cases" section, and the second, depending on the answer to the first issue being in the affirmative, was how many weeks she would be entitled to under the same section. The point attempted to be made by these issues and raised by the appellant in two prayers offered by her, is that under the "Other Cases" section the Commission had no power to limit compensation to $2,000, but that such compensation should continue during permanent partial disability until the claimant had received $3,000, the limit fixed in the statute, or until the payment of compensation had been ended by a reconsideration by the Commission. The trial judge followed the decisions of this court, *411 approving the practice of the Commission in allowing less than $3,000 in cases coming under the "Other Cases" section, and affirmed the award of the Commission. From his decision and judgment for the employer and insurer for costs, the appeal comes here by the claimant.
There was no dispute as to the facts about the accident and no dispute about the permanency of the partial disability, although the doctors did differ somewhat as to its effect on the wage-earning capacity of the appellant. The case, as heard under Trial Rule 9, Rules of Practice and Procedure, is conducted as an equity case, and the Judge gives his reasons in his opinion and enters his judgment. Maryland Casualty Company v. Wolff,
The construction of "Other Cases" clause of Sec. 48 of Article 101, is not one of first impression here. This the appellant readily admits. But she asks us to re-examine and review what she contends is an erroneous construction heretofore adopted, to overrule the previous decisions of this Court, and to construe the clause by giving effect to what she claims are the clear and unambiguous words of the statute. She states that the point was not argued in the previous cases, and the attention of the Court was not directed to the consequences of its findings. *412
The "Other Cases" clause was in the original Act of 1914, Chap. 800, Sec. 35. At that time the limit of the weekly payment was $12 but the total limit of compensation was $3,000, as it remained until the passage of Ch. 336, Act of 1945. The weekly limit was increased to $18 by the Act of 1920, Chap. 456. The clause remained as amended by the Act of 1920 until it was changed by the Act of 1945. It was first considered by this Court in 1928 in the case of Coca-Cola Bottling Works v. Lilly,
We have, therefore, in opposition to the position of appellant, five decisions of this Court in which awards were approved, which could not have been made under her construction of the statute. One of these cases states that the Court's conclusion was based upon the previous administrative practice of the Commission in all cases, and the last decision meets the issue squarely, and decides it on the authority of the previous cases. In addition, the Legislature, since the first decision of this Court in 1928, has amended Section 48 seven times. Act of 1931, *417
Chap. 363, Act of 1935, Chap. 487, Act of 1937, Chap. 329, Act of 1941, Chap.
The English House of Lords has held that it has no power to overrule its own decisions. (London Street Tramways Co. v.London County Council (1898), A.C. 375.) We are not so bound by precedent in this country, but, on the other hand, it is a well recognized and valuable doctrine that decisions, once made on a question involved in a case before a court, should not thereafter be lightly disturbed or set aside (except by a higher court). This is because it is advisable and necessary that the law should be fixed and established so far as possible, and the people guided in their personal and business dealings by established conclusions, not subject to change because some other judge or judges think differently.
On the other hand, it is sometimes advisable to correct a decision or decisions wrongly made in the first instance, if it is found that the decision is clearly wrong and contrary to other established principles. The appellant claims that this is such a case. In support of that contention, she cites the doctrine frequently laid down by this and other courts, that where a statute is clear and unambigious, there is no room for judicial construction, and any change in its obvious meaning is judicial legislation, contrary to constitutional authority. One of the cases *418
we have already cited, Gorman v. Atlantic Gulf Pacific Co.,
The precise point made by appellant is that the "Other Cases" section requires payment "during the continuance of such partial disability," without any limitation except that such payments shall not exceed $3,000. She, therefore, contends that while the Commission has the right to determine the average weekly wage and the wage-earning capacity, and to fix the weekly payments at 50 per cent. of the difference between the two (a question which the claimant does not raise in this case because she was allowed the weekly maximum), the Commission has no power to limit the number of weeks so long as the permanent partial disability continues, and that the only limitation, unless there is a subsequent modification, is when the aggregate weekly payments reach the maximum sum fixed by the statute. This contention would result in any claimant suffering a permanent partial disability, through an unspecified injury, receiving $3,000 (now $5,000), no matter whether the disability was great or small. If the disability was slight, and the wage-earning capacity was thereby only slightly diminished, the weekly payments would be less, and it would take longer to reach the maximum, but the claimant would in the end receive the full amount. On the other hand, if the wage earning capacity were seriously disturbed by the permanent partial disability, the claimant would get the maximum weekly payments and would continue to get them until she received $3,000 (now $5,000). Such a claimant would get the maximum more quickly, but would not get any more in the aggregate than the other claimant who received a much less serious injury. Whether the Legislature intended this or not, there is no means of ascertaining except by the words of the statute. The clear unambiguous words used seem to indicate that it did so intend, and if this were the first time this question was before this Court, we might so hold. The question now, however, *420 is not so simple. It becomes an issue between the two doctrines of stare decisis on the one hand, and constitutional lack of authority in the Court to legislate on the other.
It is interesting to note that in a number of jurisdictions and states, where similar clauses are in compensation acts, with a limitation, ether as to amount, or as to number of weeks, the courts have held that there is no discretion to give less than the limitation. Some such cases are Lumber Mutual Casualty Co.of New York v. Locke, 2 Cir.,
Appellant contends that the effect of the judicial interpretation of the statute leaving discretion in the commission to award a total amount less than $3,000 (now $5,000) prevents her and other claimants similarly situated from having the benefit of the appeal given by Section 70 of Article 101. It is not a necessary requirement under due process that an appeal shall be allowed. Branch v. Indemnity Ins. Co.,
It by no means follows, however, that there can be no appeal in claims under the "Other Cases" section. In order to make an award under that section the Commission must find facts. It must find among other things the wage-earning capacity of the claimant, and then award him or her 50 per cent. of the difference between his or her average weekly wages and the wage-earning capacity thus found. If any of the parties contend that the Commission has made an error in finding the wage-earning capacity of a claimant, an appeal can be had on that issue.
The case before us presented only a question of law, and the issues were not such as a jury or a court sitting as a jury could pass upon. The appellant had been given the maximum weekly payment, which in her case would indicate an 80 per cent. loss of wage-earning capacity. We must assume that is what was determined, and as that was within the authority of the Commission, and the appellees took no appeal, there is nothing before us on this point. The sole question is whether the Commission had the right to limit the award to $2,000.
It is suggested that the Commission has made a practice of awarding the maximum weekly amount in each case and has indicated the percentage of loss of wage-earning capacity found by the percentage of the maximum given as the limit of the particular award. If this is true, it is wrong under the statute, and has the effect of preventing an appeal by the claimant. We cannot, however, assume *422 on the face of the record that such a method was adopted in the case before us.
It has been the law for 18 years, and was the administrative practice for a number of years before the first decision of this Court in 1928 that the total award could be less than the maximum. If any undue hardship had resulted, it would seem probable that the Legislature would have corrected the situation by an appropriate amendment to the Workmen's Compensation Law. As we have stated, it made no such amendment. Hundreds of cases must have been decided under the interpretation placed upon the "Other Cases" section by our predecessors. The claimants in these cases, at least since 1928, were working and were injured under the statute as interpreted by this Court. That has been the law since that time. Constitution, Article IV, Section 15. The appellant was injured under that law. Upon what principle of equality and justice can we now determine that she is entitled to compensation under a different interpretation, which makes a different law from that under which she was employed?
Our reasoned conclusion is that the interpretation of the "Other Cases" section must remain as it has existed at least for the past 18 years, until such time as the General Assembly of Maryland shall see fit to change it. It is, in our opinion, more important that the law should remain settled as it is than that another interpretation possibly more logical should now, after all these years, be given to it.
Judgment affirmed, with costs. *423