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Belcher v. T. Rowe Price Foundation Inc.3/25/1993
led Workmen's Compensation Act so as to preclude direct suit against the employer. It reasoned that since " here was no claim for any physical injuries" to Le, his claim was not compensable under the Act. Therefore, it did not fall within the ambit of the Act at all, and thus the exclusivity provision was not applicable. 80 Md. App. at 90, 560 A.2d 42. The intermediate appellate court took the position that "tort actions are not barred by [the Act] when the essence of the injury is non-physical." Id. at 92, 560 A.2d 42. It stated that this Court, in interpreting "accidental injury " under the Act, has held that the term "means physical injury to the person caused by some unusual condition or occurrence in the employment." Id. at 91, 560 A.2d 42(emphasis in original). It was the intermediate appellate court's notion that an injury is compensable only when there is an accidental physiological change arising out of and in the course of employment. Id. at 91, 560 A.2d 42. In other words, the absence of a physiological change or physical harm or damage precludes a finding that an injury under the Act occurred. Id. The court concluded that the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the employer and gave this explanation:
The quiddity of false arrest, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress is non-physical. Those torts are ordinarily outside the scope of the Workers' Compensation Act. Since they are not within the Act, the statute does not protect the employer from actions grounded on those particular torts.
80 Md. App. at 93, 560 A.2d 42. The intermediate appellate court pointed out:
Neither the Court of Appeals nor [the Court of Special Appeals] has heretofore addressed the question of whether non-physical injury torts are within the ambit of the Act. . . .
Id. at 92, 560 A.2d 42.
We reviewed the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals in Federated Stores v. Le, 324 Md. 71, 595 A.2d 1067(1991) on our grant of certiorari. We affirmed the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals but rejected its reasons. Instead, we looked to § 44 of Art. 101 (now in revised form as § 9-509(d) of the Labor and Employment article) which provided:
If injury or death results to a workman from the deliberate intention of his employer to produce such injury or death, the employee, the widow, widower, child, children or dependents of the employee shall have the privilege either to take under this article or have cause of action against such employer, as if this article had not been passed.
We construed § 44 as decisive of the issue. We held that "under the facts of this case, the circuit court should not have granted [the employer's] motion for summary judgment. . . ." 324 Md. at 87, 595 A.2d 1067.
So it was that we had no need to determine whether injuries psychological, emotional or mental in nature, as distinguished from those purely physiological, were within the purview of the Act. The status of such trauma under the Act was left in limbo by this Court.
The question of the compensability of injuries under the Act which are in essence psychological, emotional or mental, as distinguished from those which are purely physiological in nature, is now squarely before us. This Court is not bound by the decisions of the Court of Special Appeals, although we have ofttimes fou
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