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Kelly v. Baltimore County1/31/2005
ly had lost before the Commission and Kelly had initiated the de novo review in the circuit court. This Court's decision in the American Airlines case illustrates the different burden faced by an appealing claimant who has lost before the Commission. In American Airlines, the claimant, who had lost before the Commission, had pursued de novo review in the circuit court and then succeeded in obtaining a jury verdict in his favor even though he produced no expert medical evidence on the complicated medical issue presented in that case. The trial judge refused to grant the employer's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. When the employer appealed to this Court, however, we reversed, stating:
The appellee, as the claimant, obviously carried his burden of persuasion at the circuit court level, for the jury rendered a verdict in his favor. The pertinent question before us, however, is whether the appellee carried his burden of initial production so as to have entitled him even to have the jury consider the case. If the appellee failed to meet that burden of production, the trial court committed error in denying the appellant's Motion for Judgment N.O.V.
120 Md. App. at 353.
Since the employer in the American Airlines case was the prevailing party below, the claimant was obligated to produce evidence of all elements of a prima facie case, including sufficient evidence of causation, in the circuit court proceedings. Because the causation issue was, under the facts of that case, a "complicated medical question" requiring expert medical testimony to resolve, id. at 363-64, and the claimant could not rely upon a favorable finding of the Commission, the claimant failed to meet his initial burden of production by failing to present supporting expert testimony. We concluded: "Absent such expert medical testimony, the evidence of the claimant in this case was not legally sufficient to have permitted the case to go to the jury...." Id. at 364.
Whether the causation issue is deemed a "complicated medical question" requiring expert medical testimony cannot be reduced to a "hard and fast rule controlling all cases." Id. at 382-83. However, we need not decide whether the causation issue in Kelly's case is a complicated medical question. Even if the causation issues presented in Kelly's case were complicated medical issues, we conclude, based upon our holding in S.B. Thomas, that the circuit court erred in granting the employer's motion for summary judgment against a claimant who enjoyed the presumption of correctness of a favorable ruling of the Commission. As stated previously, because Kelly prevailed before the Commission, he "no longer bore any obligation to prove causation; that had become a `given' in the case." Id. at 368. Instead, the County, as the party attacking the presumption of the Commission's decision, bore the obligation of proving the absence of causation.
Previous caselaw has demonstrated the importance of recog-nizing the statutory requirement, stated in L.E. ยง 9-745(b)(1), that the Commission's decision be presumed prima facie correct. See Newell v. Richards, 323 Md. 717, 732 (1991) (Court of Appeals emphasized the importance of the presumption, noting that "the Worker 's Compensation Commission is an administrative agency and was created specifically to develop an expertise in its field"); and Kelly Catering, Inc. v. Holman, 96 Md. App. 256, 271-72 (1993), (Court of Special Appeals stated: "It is, of course, beyond dispute--and therefore rarely stated--that the [Commission] possesses considerable expertise in interpreting and applying the Workers' Compensation statutes...."), aff'd, 334 Md. 480 (1994).
In Holman v. Kelly Catering,
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