Case Title: Buckler v. Willett Constru

Citation: 345 Md. 350

Docket Number: 11/96

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 1997-04-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND
No. 11 
September Term, 1996
___________________________________
CLIFFORD BUCKLER
v.
WILLETT CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
___________________________________
     Bell, C.J.
Eldridge
Rodowsky
Chasanow
Karwacki
Raker
Murphy, Robert C. 
  (retired, specially assigned)
JJ.
___________________________________
Opinion by Raker, J.
___________________________________
   Filed:  April 14, 1997
       The Maryland Workers’ Compensation Act is codified at Title 9 of the
1
Labor and Employment Article of the Maryland Code.  Unless otherwise indicated,
all statutory references hereinafter are to the Act.  Md. Code (1991 Repl. Vol.,
1996 Cum. Supp.) Labor and Employment Article.
       The parties dispute the exact number of hours Buckler worked at E.L.
2
Gardner, Inc.  Willett Construction contends that Appellant increased his hours
from approximately 30 hours per week prior to the injury to approximately 40
(continued...)
This appeal arises out of a workers' compensation claim for
temporary total disability benefits.  The claimant sustained a
compensable accidental injury arising out of and in the course of
his employment.  The issue we must decide is whether the claimant
is entitled to receive temporary total disability benefits as a
result of the accidental injury he suffered while working for one
employer, which rendered him unable to perform that job, but
allowed him to continue to work at his second job.  We shall hold
that under the Workers' Compensation Act (Act), Maryland Code (1991
Repl. Vol., 1996 Cum. Supp.) Title 9 of the Labor and Employment
Article,  an employee cannot recover temporary total disability
1
benefits when the employee maintains the non-injury employment
while injured.
On February 3, 1994, Appellant, Clifford P. Buckler, sustained
an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his
employment with Appellee, Willett Construction Company, when he
fell and injured his left hand.  At the time of the injury, Buckler
was also employed as a night guard for E.L. Gardner, Inc.  The
injury rendered Buckler unable to perform his work for Willett
Construction Company, but did not affect his ability to work for
E.L. Gardner.   
2
2
(...continued)
hours a week after the injury.  Appellant, however, maintains that he worked only
30 hours a week after the injury.  We have not been provided with the employment
records from E.L. Gardner, Inc.
Willett Construction paid Buckler's medical bills and 
temporary total disability benefits from February 3, 1994, to March
17, 1994.  Willett Construction discontinued the benefits when it
discovered that Buckler had been continually employed as a night
guard.  
Buckler filed a claim for continued temporary total disability
benefits with the Workers' Compensation Commission (Commission).
The Commission held a hearing on September 26, 1994, on the issue
of additional temporary total disability from March 18, 1994, and
continuing.  The employer alleged at the hearing that Buckler was
not entitled to temporary total disability benefits from March 18,
1994 to the date that he reached maximum medical improvement
because he was working at another job during this period of time.
The Commission determined that Buckler's average weekly wage was
$339.00 and that he was entitled to temporary total disability
benefits at the rate of $226.00 per week until March 17, 1994.  The
Commission denied his request for temporary total disability
benefits beyond March 17, 1994.
Buckler filed a petition for judicial review in the Circuit
Court for Prince George’s County.  The circuit court granted
Willett Construction's Motion to Dismiss and affirmed the order of
the Commission.  The court held that Buckler was not entitled to
3
temporary total disability benefits because he continued to work at
E.L. Gardner and, therefore, he was not totally disabled.  The
circuit court remanded the case to the Commission for further 
proceedings.  Buckler appealed to the Court of Special Appeals.  We
granted certiorari on our own motion prior to consideration by that
court.
Buckler contends that the trial court erred by granting
Willett Construction's Motion to Dismiss.  He asserts that he is
entitled to temporary total disability benefits to compensate him
for his "loss of earning capacity" that resulted from the injury.
Buckler takes the position that prior to the injury his earning
capacity was the combination of his salary at Willett Construction
Company and at E.L. Gardner.  Consequently, his inability to work
at Willett Construction while injured decreased his earning
capacity notwithstanding his continued employment with E.L.
Gardner.
Willett Construction maintains that the trial court correctly
dismissed Buckler's claim.  Because Buckler continued to work at
E.L. Gardner while he was injured, he was not "totally disabled,"
and, therefore, he was not entitled to temporary total disability
benefits.  
The Act recognizes four categories of disability: (1)
temporary partial disability, § 9-614; (2) temporary total
disability, § 9-618; (3) permanent partial disability, § 9-625; and
(4) permanent total disability, § 9-635. The Act does not define
4
       The Act uses the term “covered employee.”  Section 9-202 sets out the
3
criteria to determine which employees are “covered” by the Act.
the categories of disability, but rather sets out the formula for
computing benefits in each category.  The cornerstone of the
benefits calculation is "average weekly wage."  The statute directs
that average weekly wage consists of the full-time wages of the
employee  as of the time of the injury.  § 9-602(a).  To calculate
3
benefits for temporary total disability, the benefits Buckler seeks
in this case, the Act provides, in pertinent part: 
[I]f a covered employee is temporarily totally disabled
due to an accidental personal injury or an occupational
disease, the employer or its insurer shall pay the
covered employee compensation that equals two-thirds of
the average weekly wage of the covered employee. . . . 
§ 9-621(a).  The Act calculates benefits differently for temporary
partial disability.
[I]f the wage earning capacity of a covered employee is
less while temporarily partially disabled, the employer
or 
its 
insurer 
shall 
pay 
the 
covered 
employee
compensation that equals 50% of the difference between:
(i) the average weekly wage of the covered employee;
    and
(ii) the wage earning capacity of the covered
employee in the same or other employment while
temporarily partially disabled. 
§ 9-615(a).  
The statute does not define the terms "temporary total
disability" and "temporary partial disability."  We are able to
gain insight into the Legislature's meaning, however, by construing
the temporary total disability section, § 9-621, in the context of
the temporary partial disability section, § 9-615.  See Blondell v.
5
       Whether Buckler is entitled to benefits for a temporary partial
4
disability is not before this Court.  He did not raise the issue before the
circuit court nor the Workers’ Compensation Commission.  We intimate no view on
whether Buckler is entitled to temporary partial disability benefits.
Baltimore City Police Dept., 341 Md. 680, 691, 672 A.2d 639, 645
(1996) ("[W]e construe the statute as a whole, interpreting each
provision of the statute in the context of the entire statutory
scheme.").  In § 9-615(a), the General Assembly expressly
recognized that an injured worker may be able to continue working
after the injury, either at the same job or in some other
employment.  The formula for temporary partial disability, in
contrast to the formula for temporary total disability, accounts
for wages earned by the employee while disabled.  When an employee
becomes temporarily partially disabled, the employer is obligated
to pay the employee fifty percent of the difference between the
employee's average weekly wage and the wage earning capacity of the
employee in the same or other employment while injured.  § 9-
615(a).  Temporary total disability looks only to average weekly
wage.  § 9-621(a).  Implicit in the statutory structure is the
notion, well-established by Maryland case law, that temporary total
disability is incompatible with post-injury employment.  Temporary
partial disability benefits are those "paid to an injured worker
who has rejoined the workforce but has not yet reached maximum
medical improvement from the effects of the injury."   See R. GILBERT
4
& R. HUMPHREYS, MARYLAND WORKERS' COMPENSATION HANDBOOK § 9.2, at 203-04
(1993).  Temporary total disability benefits, on the other hand,
6
are those paid to a injured worker who is "wholly disabled and
unable to work because of the injury."  Id. at 204. 
  At issue in this case is whether Buckler is entitled to
temporary total disability benefits.  In the absence of a statutory
definition of total disability, it is useful to review how this
Court has interpreted that term in the past.  This Court has
defined the period of temporary total disability as the "healing
period, or the time during which the workman is wholly disabled and
unable by reason of his injury to work."  Gorman v. Atlantic Gulf
& Pac. Co., 178 Md. 71, 78, 12 A.2d 525, 529 (1940); see also Bowen
v. Smith, 342 Md. 449, 456, 677 A.2d 81, 84 (1996); Victor v.
Proctor & Gamble, 318 Md. 624, 632-33, 569 A.2d 697, 702 (1990).
We have recognized, however, that a worker need not be completely
helpless to be deemed totally disabled.  Babcock & Wilcox, Inc. v.
Steiner, 258 Md. 468, 473, 265 A.2d 871, 874 (1970).  To establish
total disability, it suffices that the worker be able only “to
perform services so limited in quality, dependability, or quantity
that a reasonably stable market for them does not exist.”
Baltimore v. Cassidy, 338 Md. 88, 98, 656 A.2d 757, 762 (1995).
"An employee capable of performing marketable, sedentary duties,
cannot be classified as totally disabled under the Workers'
Compensation Act."  Montgomery County v. Buckman, 333 Md. 516, 529,
636 A.2d 448, 454 (1994).
This Court considered the meaning of "total disability" under
7
        In 1991, Article 101 was recodified as Title 9 of the Labor and
5
Employment Article.  See 1991 Maryland Laws ch. 8, at 248-50, ch. 21, at 1118-19. 
Section 9-621, which contains the formula for computing temporary total
disability benefits, derives from Article 101, § 36(2), which provided, inter
alia, that "[i]n the case of temporary total disability, sixty-six and two-thirds
per centum of the average weekly wages shall be paid to the employee during the
continuance thereof."  Section 9-621 is nearly identical to the former § 36(2).  
the terms of Article 101 of the Maryland Code, the precursor to
Title 9 of the Labor and Employment Article,  in Congoleum Nairn v.
5
Brown, 158 Md. 285, 148 A. 220 (1930).  In Brown, while working for
Congoleum Nairn, the claimant severed several fingers and he
received compensation from the Commission for permanent partial
disability resulting from that loss.  Id. at 286, 148 A. at 220.
The trial court awarded compensation for total disability.  Id. at
287, 148 A. at 221.  The relevant issue on appeal was whether the
trial court properly instructed the jury that they might find
permanent total disability if they found that prior to the
accident, the claimant was able to do the regular work assigned to
him, but after the accident, was totally and permanently
incapacitated to do that work or any other work that he was
accustomed and qualified to perform at the time of the accident.
Id. at 287, 148 A. at 221.  The employer objected to the
instruction, asserting that "total disability in the Compensation
Act means incapacity to do further work of any kind, not only of
the kind he was accustomed and qualified to perform at the time of
the accident." Id. at 287, 148 A. at 221 (emphasis added).  This
Court agreed and reversed the judgment, holding that in measuring
8
wage-earning capacity, the measure is not limited to the same
employment.  The Brown Court reasoned:
If it should be, then ability which was merely reduced by
the accident might be taken as totally lost, and a
workman who still possessed a high degree of capacity
might be entitled to compensation for total disability
because no longer capable of performing the kind or grade
of work he was previously capable of performing.  Or, in
this particular case, the claimant, although he may have
been considered by the jury as able to perform the duties
of some occupations as testified, was, under the
instruction, to be compensated as totally disabled if the
work for which he was previously qualified was of a
higher grade or materially different in other respects.
In the opinion of this court that was not the purpose of
the compensation statute.  
Id. at 288, 148 A. at 221.  If the injury allows a claimant to
perform duties of some other occupation, the claimant is not
totally disabled within the meaning of the Act.  See id. at 288,
148 A. 221.
This Court has more recently addressed the meaning of total
disability in Victor v. Proctor & Gamble, 318 Md. 624, 569 A.2d 697
(1990) and Bowen v. Smith, 342 Md. 449, 677 A.2d 81 (1996).  In
Victor, the workers' compensation claimant who suffered an
accidental injury on the job voluntarily retired before he was
deemed temporarily totally disabled.  The employer contended that
it was not obligated to pay temporary total disability payments
because the retired employee did not intend to work even if he were
able.  Victor, 318 Md. at 626-27, 569 A.2d at 698-99.  This Court
rejected that contention and reasoned that "[d]uring the healing
period . . . he was deemed under the Act to be unable to work, even
9
         In those jurisdictions with comparable statutory language, our sister
6
states have interpreted total disability similarly. See Bailey v. Litwin Corp.,
713 P.2d 249, 253 (Alaska 1986) (citing case that quotes Gorman v. Atlantic Gulf
& Pacific Co., 178 Md. 71, 12 A.2d 525, 529 (1940), for proposition that
temporary total disability is “‘the healing period or the time during which the
workman is wholly disabled and unable by reason of his injury to work’”); 
Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm'n, 272 P.2d 818, 820 (Cal.
Ct. App. 1954) ("The period of temporary total disability is that period when the
employee is totally incapacitated for work."); A.M.T.C. of Illinois, Inc. v.
Industrial Comm'n, 397 N.E.2d 804, 806 (Ill. 1979)(total disability when a person
“cannot perform services except those that are so limited in quantity,
dependability or quality that there is no reasonably stable market for them”);
(continued...)
if he desired to do so, because he was totally disabled."  Id. at
633, 569 A.2d at 702.  
 In Bowen, this Court applied the reasoning of Victor to
uphold an award of temporary total disability benefits to a
claimant who became incarcerated after he was injured.  The Court
rejected the employer’s contention that it was not obligated to pay
disability benefits because it was the employee’s incarceration,
not his disability, that rendered him unable to work.  Bowen, 342
Md. at 457-58, 677 A.2d at 85.  Incarceration, like  retirement in
Victor, had no bearing on the employee’s total disability.  The
relevant question, the Court reasoned, was not whether the employee
could work while in jail, but rather whether the disability
resulting from the injury continued.  Id. at 458, 677 A.2d at 86.
Victor and Bowen reiterate and apply this Court’s long-
standing interpretation of the term "total disability."  Total
disability is synonymous with the inability to work.  The ability
to work at a job for which a reasonably stable market exists
precludes any finding of total disability under the Act.   Cf.
6
10
(...continued)
Lee v. Minneapolis St. Ry. Co., 41 N.W.2d 433, 436 (Minn. 1950) (an employee is
totally disabled when the employee can only perform services for which no
reasonably stable market exists); McKinzie v. Sandon, 380 P.2d 580, 583 (Mont.
1963) (total disability requires that earning power be “wholly destroyed”);
Smith-Gruner v. Yandell, 768 P.2d 388, 389 (Okla. Ct. App. 1989) (not temporarily
totally disabled if claimant is “capable of some employment or . . . able to
perform some remunerative work”).
Captain v. Sonnier Timber Co., 503 So.2d 689 (La. Ct. App. 1987)
(holding that workers' compensation claimant who is in fact working
is, by definition, ineligible for total disability benefits); State
ex. rel. Johnson v. Rawac Plating Co., 575 N.E.2d 837 (Ohio 1991)
(holding that employee who continued to work at a second job was
not totally disabled under Ohio law).  
We hold that Buckler is ineligible for temporary total
disability benefits because he was able to work while recovering
from the injuries sustained at Willett Construction.  During the
time he was unable to work at Willett Construction due to the
injury to his hand, he continued to do work for which a reasonable
market exists, Babcock & Wilcox, Inc. v. Steiner, 258 Md. 468, 474,
265 A.2d 871, 874 (1970), i.e., he worked as a night guard for E.L.
Gardner.  Total disability under the Act is not measured by actual
loss of wages, but rather by the loss of earning capacity.  Victor
v. Proctor & Gamble, 318 Md. 624, 632, 569 A.2d 697, 700 (1990).
Here, although Buckler may have lost wages, he remained capable of
earning wages by performing a service for which a reasonably stable
market exists.  Baltimore v. Cassidy, 338 Md. 88, 98, 656 A.2d 757,
762 (1995)  His earning capacity remained intact, as evidenced by
11
      Several states have addressed the relationship between concurrent
7
employment and average weekly wage by statute.  See, e.g., CONN. GEN. STAT. § 31-
310(a) (1994); MASS. ANN. LAWS ch. 152, § 1(1) (1996); N.H. REV. STAT. ANN. § 281-
A:15(III) (1996); N.Y. WORK. COMP. LAW § 14(6) (Consol. 1996); R.I. GEN. LAWS § 28-
33-20(a)(1) (1996); VT. STAT. ANN. tit. 21, § 650(a) (1996). 
his employment with E.L. Gardner subsequent to the injury.
Buckler contends that depriving him of temporary total
disability 
benefits 
under 
these 
circumstances 
renders 
the
compensation system unfair because, in calculating his average
weekly wage, only the wages from the job at which he was injured
are considered.  Crowner v. Balto. Butchers Ass'n, 226 Md. 606,
611, 175 A.2d 7, 9 (1961).  He essentially argues that the
compensation system lacks symmetry because had he been unable to
work at either of his jobs after his injury, his wages from his
employment with E.L. Gardner would not be considered in determining
average weekly wage, but because he was able to continue working,
his employment with E.L. Gardner is considered in determining
temporary total disability.  
This argument ignores the different functions of average
weekly wage and temporary total disability determinations.  Average
weekly wage determines the amount an employer or its insurer must
pay.  In Crowner, this Court held that when determining the average
weekly wage of a claimant with two jobs concurrently, only the
wages at the injury-causing job shall be considered.   The Court
7
reasoned that it would be unfair to impose additional financial
obligations on the employer by calculating benefits based on a
12
higher average weekly wage than the employee received.  See id. at
613, 175 A.2d at 10.  Temporary total disability, on the other
hand, refers to the healing period during which the employee is
unable to work due to the injury.  Gorman v. Atlantic Gulf & Pac.
Co., 178 Md. 71, 78, 12 A.2d 525, 529 (1940).  Temporary total
disability describes a physical state and has no bearing on the
relationship between concurrent employers.  The rule set out in
Crowner ensures that each employer will be responsible for paying
benefits only in relation to wages paid to the injured employee,
and not in relation to all of the employee's earnings from all
sources.  Temporary total disability merely describes the
employee's physical state, independent of the employee's second
job.  
JUDGMENT OF THE CIRCUIT
COURT FOR PRINCE GEORGE'S
COUNTY AFFIRMED.  COSTS
TO BE PAID BY APPELLANT.