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Belcher v. T. Rowe Price Foundation Inc.3/25/1993
Maryland tort law bearing on damages for emotional distress (said to be "a standard permitting recovery for damages for trauma resulting from purely emotional distress that can be objectively determined"). Id. at 735, 621 A.2d at 885. Whether or not the foregoing statement accurately condenses Maryland tort law, it should not be imported into the Workers' Compensation Act (the Act).
The expansive rationale of the majority opinion takes a state of facts which, under the Sargent analysis, presents a "physical-mental claim," and resolves it by recognizing a "mental-mental claim" as a compensable claim. "Physicalmental claims involve a physical injury which leads to a mental disability; for example, a conversion neurosis following a traumatic injury." D. DeCarlo, Workplace Stress: Page 749} Trends, Outlook and Perspectives 258 (Am.Ins.Ass'n.1987). "Mental-mental claims refer to mental stress which results in a mental disability; for example, a nervous breakdown brought on by job harassment or termination." Id.
The majority erects a "caution" -- the "'mental injury must be precipitated by an accident.'" 329 Md. at 740, 621 A.2d at 887(quoting Sparks v. Tulane Medical Ctr. Hosp. & Clinic, 546 So.2d 138, 147 (La.1989)). What the majority apparently considers to be an appropriately compensable mental-mental claim, and what the majority considers to be the appropriate scope of the accident requirement, are illustrated in the favorably cited Sparks decision.
The claimant was hired by the employer hospital in 1980. She worked for four years in distribution of medical supplies, was promoted to regular work-week manager of the distribution center in 1984, and stopped work in April 1987. Relatively early in her employment, she had complained to her supervisor about co-workers smoking marijuana, and she had cautioned a co-worker about possible drug possession. From time to time property was stolen from the storeroom, including some belonging to the claimant, and there were acts of vandalism, some of which might have been directed at the claimant.
In 1987, at a staff meeting, the claimant expressed her opinion that a weekend crew, in the charge of another supervisor and responsible for restocking supply shelves, had been performing poorly. In protest of the criticism, two of the weekend employees refused to restock at all on the following weekend. When a senior supervisor decided that the protestors should be suspended for five days, the weekend supervisor told the claimant that "'a lot of people around here want to kick your butt.'" Id. at 141.
A majority of the Supreme Court of Louisiana held that, as a matter of law, the communication of threats to the claimant was an accident, and that her fright and upset over the threats, which resulted in an emotional disability,
was the injury . Id. at 148. "The Louisiana legislature reacted quickly to the Sparks decision, passing amendments to the statute in agreement with the dissent's reasoning." M. Antonetti, Labor Law: Workers' Compensation Statutes and the Recovery of Emotional Distress Damages in the Absence of Physical Injury, 1990 Ann.Surv. of Am.Law 671, 680 (footnote omitted) (Antonetti).
I disagree with the majority's approval of "'allowing the mental-mental claim justified by both the goals of workers' compensation laws and evidence regarding the nature of mental injuries.'" 329 Md. at 741, 621 A.2d at 888(quoting Antonetti at 696). The legislative history of the recodification of the Maryland Workers' Compensation Act makes plain to me the General Assembly's intent that mental
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