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Belcher v. T. Rowe Price Foundation Inc.3/25/1993
-mental claims should not be compensable. Further, the General Assembly's ongoing interest in, and concern over, the costs of workers' compensation dictate judicial restraint rather than an expansion of benefits by judicial fiat, based on the majority's view of "'the best social policy.'" Id. at 742, 621 A.2d at 888(quoting Antonetti at 698).
The Act was recodified from former Art. 101 of the Md. Code to Title 9 of the Labor and Employment Article of the Code by Chapter 8 of the Acts of 1991. It was introduced as House Bill 1 on January 9, 1991, and referred to the Economic Matters Committee. As proposed by the staff of the Legislative Division of the Department of Legislative Reference (the Revisor), and as introduced, § 9-101(b) created a definitional term used throughout the Act -- "accidental injury ." By letter of January 16, 1991, the chairperson of the Workers' Compensation Committee of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce wrote to the Chairperson of the House Economic Matters Committee opposing this definition and urging that proposed Title 9 use the term, "accidental personal injury ," that had been used, albeit not uniformly, in Art. 101. Although the Revisor's Note to § 9-101, that was included in House Bill 1, indicated that no substantive change was intended, the position taken by the
Chamber of Commerce was not devoid of merit. We have recently pointed out, speaking through Judge Eldridge, that "personal injury . . . normally connotes a physical injury to a victim." United States v. Streidel, 329 Md. 533, 539, 620 A.2d 905, 909 (1993). The Chamber of Commerce in part pointed out that " letter from the Legislative Analyst assigned to the Article Review Committee concedes that there is a potential problem with the proposed new definition of accidental injury if the Maryland Court of Appeals were to interpret the term 'accidental injury' to include other than physical injuries."
Companion legislation to the proposed new Labor and Employment Article was House Bill 692, prepared to correct throughout the Code cross-references that would be rendered obsolete by the new Labor and Employment Article. House Bill 692, introduced on February 1, 1991, also was referred to the House Economic Matters Committee. That committee amended House Bill 692 by inserting a new § 5 to the bill, consisting of eighteen printed pages. 1991 Md. Laws 1170-87. The amendments changed the Revisor's definitional term "accidental injury " to "accidental personal injury " and inserted that term throughout proposed Title 9. House Bills 1 and 692 were reported favorably by the House Committee on March 1, 1991; both were passed by the House on March 6, 1991; both were introduced into the Senate on March 7, 1991; and both were enacted. House Bill 1 was enacted on March 21 while House Bill 692 was enacted on March 22 as Chapter 21 of the Acts of 1991.
In the Maryland Code the combined effect of both bills appears under the Revisor's Note to § 9-101 that has remained unchanged from its introductory form in House Bill 1. But the General Assembly did not agree with the Revisor that there was no difference between "accidental injury " and "accidental personal injury ." We should not consider that the General Assembly engaged in a useless act when it caused amendments to be made throughout the Act. Clearly the general purpose of the amendments was
to prevent a judicial interpretation of "accidental injury " that included "other than physical injuries."
At the time of the legislative amendments, however, the Court
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