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Hundt v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore3/13/1997
Opinion by Wilner, J.;
The Circuit Court for Baltimore City, on summary judgment, affirmed findings by the Workers' Compensation Commission that (1) on September 28, 1992, while working as a volunteer school aide for the Baltimore City School System, appellant sustained an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of her employment when she slipped on the cafeteria floor and injured her left knee, (2) as a result of that injury, she suffered a permanent partial disability, (3) pursuant to Maryland Code, § 6-107(d) of the Education article and § 9-226(a) of the Labor and Employment article, she was a "covered employee" under the Workers' Compensation Law and was therefore entitled to the payment of medical expenses arising from the injury, but (4) because, as an unpaid volunteer, she had no average weekly wage, she was not entitled to weekly monetary benefits.
The only issue in this appeal is whether the court was correct in its last conclusion. Appellant contends that, notwithstanding that she had no average weekly wage, she is nonetheless entitled to minimum benefits of $50/week pursuant to Labor and Empl. art., § 9-626(a). Section 9-626 provides in relevant part:
"(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, a covered employee who is entitled to compensation under this subtitle for a permanent partial disability shall receive minimum weekly compensation of $50.
(b) If the covered employee has an average weekly wage of less than $50 at the time of the accidental personal injury . . . the covered employee shall receive minimum compensation that equals the average weekly wage of the covered employee."
Appellant's argument is quite simple. She is a covered employee and is therefore entitled to compensation; she did not have an average weekly wage of less than $50 and, for that reason, her case did not fall under § 9-626(b); ergo, it falls under § 9-626(a).
The argument, though simple to state, overlooks the context and development of § 9-626 as well as its plain wording.
The Workers' Compensation Act has undergone many changes since its initial enactment in 1914, but at least four features have remained constant with respect to accidental personal injuries arising out of and in the course of employment. The first is the recognition of four kinds of compensable disability that can result from such injuries: temporary partial, temporary total, permanent partial, and permanent total. The second constant feature is the provision of two principal kinds of benefits to be paid by the employer: weekly cash benefits and medical expenses. Third, since its inception, the law has pegged weekly cash benefits for three of the four disability categories -- temporary total, permanent partial, and permanent total -- to the amount of "average weekly wage" earned by the claimant at the time of the injury . Finally, as a fourth constant, since 1914 the law has provided a minimum weekly benefit with respect to total disabilities, and since 1920 it has provided a minimum weekly benefit with respect to permanent partial disability.
In the original enactment, an employee was entitled, for a total disability, whether permanent or partial, to 50% of his or her average weekly wage, not to exceed $12/week and an aggregate of $5,000. 1914 Md. Laws, ch. 800, § 35. The statute also provided a minimum payment of $5/week "unless the employe's [ sic ] established weekly wages are less than five dollars per week at the time of the injury, in which event he shall receive compensation in an amount equal to his average weekly wages. . . ." Id. In the case of a permanent partial disability, the employee was to receive 50% of h
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