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Polomski v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore11/21/1996
-(2), are synonymous, § 9-503(d)(2) has no purpose. We will not read any part of a statute to be superfluous. See, e.g., Schlossberg v. Citizens Bank of Maryland, 341 Md. 650, 660, 672 A.2d 625, 629 (1996); Thomas v. Police Comm'r of Baltimore City, 211 Md. 357, 361, 127 A.2d 625, 627 (1956). The same principle should apply when construing an entire act, and we will, therefore, not read any portion of the Workers' Compensation Act to be mere surplusage.
The only occasion this Court has had to consider the offset provision of Art. 101, § 64A(b) was in Harris v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 306 Md. 669, 511 A.2d 52 (1986). In Harris, three Baltimore City fire fighters retired under the disability provisions of former Art. 101, § 64A, now § 9-503(a). We there held that the unambiguous language of Art. 101, § 64A(b), like that of the offset provision of Art. 101, § 33, clearly expressed the legislative policy of providing one recovery for one wage loss as the result of a disability, and that the statute clearly required the claimants' workers' compensation awards be reduced by their retirement allowances. Notwithstanding its recodification in Title 9 of the Labor and Employment Article, the offset provision of former Art. 101, § 64A(b) is no less clear today. Polomski insists that his retirement benefits are not wage-loss benefits, but rather deferred compensation for his nearly thirty-eight years of service with the Baltimore City fire department and that they are, therefore, dissimilar to his workers' compensation benefits. While that may be true, in light of the unambiguous language of § 9-503(d)(2), it is also irrelevant.
We agree with the intermediate appellate court that the clear language of § 9-503(d)(2) negated the need to look elsewhere for its meaning. The section specifically and unambiguously requires that Polomski's workers' compensation benefits be reduced to the extent that, when combined with his retirement benefits, the sum does not exceed his weekly salary. If § 9-503(d)(2) is to be amended to require a setoff against only "similar benefits," that amendment must come from the General Assembly, not this Court. Polomski's workers' compensation benefits must accordingly be reduced.
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED. COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER.
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