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Belcher v. T. Rowe Price Foundation Inc.3/25/1993
d evidence regarding the nature of mental injuries. The primary goal of workers' compensation is to compensate disabled employees. If an individual is unable to work because of a job related injury, he remains disabled whether he was injured from either mental or physical stress. Therefore, workers' compensation laws should make allowances for the mental-mental claimant. Additionally, modern medical and psychological theory supports the proposition that those who are unable to work for psychological reasons are as disabled to the same extent as those who are physically injured.
Id. at 696 (footnote omitted). We are not at odds with Antonetti's comment that because "workers' compensation statues are drafted by the legislature, the judiciary should defer to legislative judgments." Id. at 698. "Nevertheless,"
he avers, and we are in complete accord, "the judiciary has a role to play in determining the compensability of workers' compensation claims." Id.
When the legislature has failed adequately to define statutory terms, the court is obliged to interpret the law and decide on the best social policy. Additionally, courts modernize the law by interpreting statutes to their definitional limits.
Id. We have done precisely this and with reasonable safeguards.
The amici curiae have a final arrow in their quiver. They use it to try to shoot down Belcher with the assertion that
he legislative history of the term "accidental personal injury " during the 1991 recodification of the Maryland Workers' Compensation law demonstrates the legislative intent to continue to limit compensable claims to only those involving physical injuries to the person.
We do not see it that way.
The Department of Legislative Reference presented to the 1991 session of the General Assembly of Maryland a new Labor and Employment article, House Bill 1 (Acts 1991, ch. 8) and House Bill 692 (Acts 1991, ch. 21), prepared by it in accordance with its statutory responsibility to revise the Annotated Code. Included in the revision was a "Plain English" recodification of Article 101 -- The Workmen's Compensation Act. We have exhausted the legislative file on the bills, maintained by the Department of Legislative Reference. The Department's "Overview" of HB 1 explained that " he goal in revising is to rewrite the law in a more clear and concise manner without making any substantive changes . . . . Thus, while the language of a revision differs from the derivative statute, the legislative intent does not change." In the case of workmen's compensation the understanding of the practical application of the Act was derived largely from case law.
The Department's "Report on House Bill 1" proposed that the workers' compensation law be Title 9 in the new Labor and Employment article. Section 9-101(b) was to define "accidental injury ," as "(1) an accidental injury that arises out of and in the course of employment; (2) an injury caused by a willful or negligent act of a third person . . .," in accord with the former Art. 101, ยง 67(6). The Maryland Chamber of Commerce reacted to the proposed revision. The attorney who chaired the Workers' Compensation Committee of the Chamber of Commerce wrote the Chairman of the House Economic Matters Committee expressing "concern and opposition to the new definition of 'accidental injury'" because it "removes the word 'personal' from the current substantive use of accidental personal injury ." (Emphases in original). He claimed:
This is a substantive change from the current law and it eliminates a very substantial and
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