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Philip Electronics North America v. Wright12/12/1997
the Act. See Waskiewicz v. General Motors Corp., 342 Md. 699, 712, 679 A.2d 1094, 1101 (1996) ("That the result in a particular case seems harsh is thus not enough to overcome the bar on reopening a claim after five years."); 1 Larson, supra, Section(s) 2.20, at 1-5 (noting that the equity of a workers' compensation statute must be determined from a group as well as an individual perspective).
As this Court has noted in the past, the Act reflects the Legislature's considered judgment as to the appropriate allocation of resources between employers, employees, and the taxpayers of this State. Polomski, 344 Md. at 76-77, 684 A.2d at 1340-41. Significantly, Philip Electronics, as a party to this political equation, receives a valuable benefit in that they are relieved "from the vagaries of tort liability." Id. at 77, 684 A.2d at 1341. For instance, unlike a tort recovery, benefits paid pursuant to the Act compensate only for loss of earning capacity, and do not seek to return a claimant to his or her pre-disability state. 1 Larson, supra, Section(s) 2.50, at 1-9. Compensation awarded on fault-free basis under the statutory plan substitutes for an employee's common law right to bring a fault-based tort suit against an employer for damages resulting from the employee's injury or disablement on the job . . . .
Employers who purchase workers' compensation insurance and otherwise comply with the law of workers compensation can . . . count on avoiding a negligence lawsuit. DeBusk v. Johns Hopkins, 342 Md. 432, 438, 677 A.2d 73, 75-76 (1996); see Queen v. Queen, 308 Md. 574, 585, 521 A.2d 320, 326 (1987); Richard P. Gilbert & Robert L. Humphreys, Jr., Maryland Workers' Compensation Handbook Section(s) 15.0, at 304 (2nd ed. 1993).
Such a sensitive balancing of respective interests is properly within the province of the General Assembly, absent a constitutional provision to the contrary. Bowen, 342 Md. at 459 n.6, 677 A.2d at 86 n.6; Paul v. Glidden Co., 184 Md. 114, 119, 39 A.2d 544, 546 (1944). In recognizing that the legislature is the appropriate forum to balance the equity or fairness of a particular statutory provision in a workers compensation scheme, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine cogently observed:
"To attempt to resolve this question by engrafting upon the statutory scheme judicially created doctrines of restitution would involve us in the establishment of broad social policy in a field of law created by the legislature in response to legislative dissatisfaction with judicial solutions to the problems of compensation for workers injured in industrial accidents." Murray, 420 A.2d at 252 (emphasis added); see Christensen v. Oshkosh Truck Corp., 12 F.3d 980, 987 (10th Cir. 1993) (applying Utah law and reasoning that it is not within the prerogative of courts to fashion common law exceptions to the statute "because the workers' compensation statutes provide the exclusive remedy for work-related injuries").
In this case, the Commission's order of November 17, 1994 gave Philip Electronics credit for the total monetary amount of compensation previously paid to Wright, and offset that amount against her recalculated benefits. The Circuit Court for Dorchester County agreed with that decision. As the Court of Special Appeals correctly held, Philip Electronics was entitled to a credit only for the number of weeks of benefits actually paid pursuant to the Commission's original order.
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED. COSTS IN THIS COURT
AND IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONERS.
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