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Means v. Baltimore County3/4/1997
at caused the death or disability:
(i) is due to the nature of an employment in
which hazards of the occupational disease exist and the covered employee was employed before the date of disablement; or
(ii) has manifestations that are consistent
with those known to result from exposure to a biological, chemical, or physical agent that is attributable to the type of employment in which the covered employee was employed before the date of disablement . . . .
The limitations imposed by § 9-502(d) seek to ensure that only those diseases directly caused by the employment be compensable. Davis v. Dynacorp, 336 Md. 226, 236, 647 A.2d 446, 451 (1994).
Occupational diseases have not always been compensable under the Act. The legislative history of the Act suggests that the General Assembly was reluctant to recognize occupational diseases as compensable under workers' compensation. See Miller v. Western Electric Co., 310 Md. 173, 181, 528 A.2d 486, 490 (1987); see generally Thomas S. Cook, Workers' Compensation and Stress Claims: Remedial Intent and Restrictive Application, 62 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 879, 889-91 (1987) (discussing state legislatures' early and continuing reluctance regarding occupational disease claims). In 1939, however, the General Assembly recognized occupational disease "as a problem, like on-the-job accidental injury , that an industrial society had to address in a comprehensive fashion," and enacted Maryland's first occupational disease statute. Miller, 310 Md. at 182, 528 A.2d at 491; see 1939 Md. Laws ch. 465.
Chapter 465 of the Acts of 1939 enumerated thirty-four diseases that were compensable under the Act as occupational diseases. The statute required employers to compensate only for those thirty-four specified diseases and only when caused by the process or occupation specified. For example, asbestosis was compensable if arising out of "any process or occupation involving an exposure to or direct contact with asbestos dust." 1939 Md. Laws ch. 465, § 1, at 995. In 1951, the occupational disease statute was repealed and reenacted, 1951 Md. Laws ch. 289, § 1, at 752, replacing the schedule format with the more general definition of occupational disease that remains in effect today. With this statutory framework and history in mind, we now turn to examine the compensability of PTSD under Maryland's Act.
B.
The compensability of work-related mental disabilities unaccompanied by physical illness has been a controversial topic in workers' compensation law over the past decade. Cook, (supra) , at 879. Workers' compensation claims based on mental injuries caused by mental stimuli have been coined "mental-mental" claims, in contrast to "physical-mental" and "mental-physical" claims. See A. LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION, § 42.20 (1996). Means makes a mental-mental claim--she alleges that a mental stimulus (the memory of the traumatic accidents) caused a mental injury (PTSD). A majority of the states have found mental-mental claims to be compensable under some circumstances.
This Court has recognized mental-mental claims to be compensable in the context of accidental injury. Belcher v. T. Rowe Price, 329 Md. 709, 621 A.2d 872 (1993). In Belcher, the employee, a secretary for T. Rowe Price Foundation, worked on the top floor of an office building located next to a construction site. One morning a three-ton beam broke loose from its crane and crashed through the roof of T. Rowe Price's building, landing with a deafening noise only five feet from Belcher's desk. The power in the building went out, pipes and wires were ripped apart, and debris covered Belcher. Thereafter,
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