Opinion ID: 1480176
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the board's action

Text: When Gould's claim was disallowed on January 31, 1972, upon reconsideration by a single commissioner, it was found that his stipulation before the Maryland Workmen's Compensation Commission that he was not an employee constitutes a deliberate lack of cooperation on his part with both the spirit and letter of our decision of February 10th, 1971 [directing the claimant to exhaust his compensation remedies]. When the full Board on June 14, 1972, upheld the rejection of the claim by the single commissioner, although concluding that Gould was an innocent victim of a crime and that serious financial hardship is determined not only found that the stipulation locked the Commission into a finding that the claimant is an independent contractor without the issue ever being fully litigated or heard  a practice the Board found to be reprehensible and an unfair burden on the State but, notwithstanding the decision of the Maryland Workmen's Compensation Commission nonetheless found under the provisions of Art. 101, § 67, and the cases annotated thereunder, that the claimant is an employee and/or servant and not an independent contractor. The Board in denying benefits to Gould concluded that the liability for his injuries must, by operation of law, be that of the employer and/or master. Art. 26A, § 12 (d), provides that any award made under the article shall be reduced by the amount of any payments, received or to be received, from any source, including any award of the Workmen's Compensation Commission under Art. 101. Thus, any Workmen's Compensation benefits award to Gould would operate as a reduction in the amount of any benefits which might be awarded him under Art. 26A. Section 12 (a), concerning cooperation, reads as follows: No award shall be made unless the Board or Board members, as the case may be, finds that (1) a crime was committed, (2) such crime directly resulted in personal physical injury to, or death of the victim, and (3) police records show that such crime was promptly reported to the proper authorities; and in no case may an award be made where the police records show that such report was made more than forty-eight hours after the occurrence of such crime unless the Board, for good cause shown, finds the delay to have been justified. The Board, upon finding that any claimant or award recipient has not fully cooperated with all law enforcement agencies, may deny or withdraw any award, as the case may be. (Emphasis supplied.) An independent contractor is not an employee entitled to Workmen's Compensation benefits under the provisions of Maryland Code 1957 (1964 Repl. Vol.) Art. 101, § 67. See Bowers v. Eastern Aluminum Corp., 240 Md. 625, 214 A.2d 924 (1965). Such an independent contractor has been defined as one who contracts to perform a certain work for another according to his own means and methods, free from the control of his employer in all details connected with the performance of the work, except as to its product or result. Marine v. Service Trucking Co., 225 Md. 315, 170 A.2d 188 (1961); Snider v. Gaultney, 218 Md. 332, 146 A.2d 869 (1958). Of the several criteria to be applied in determining the relationship, the right to control the worker in the performance and manner of doing the work is the most decisive test. Thompson v. Paul C. Thompson & Sons, 258 Md. 391, 395, 265 A.2d 915, 917 (1970); Anderson Nursing Homes v. Walker, 232 Md. 442, 444, 194 A.2d 85, 86 (1963). [13] Article 101, § 2, vests in the Commission original and exclusive jurisdiction to determine cases arising under that article; upon an appeal to a court of competent jurisdiction under Art. 101, § 56, the Commission's decision is prima facie correct. When no appeal is taken, the decision becomes conclusive and stands unimpeached as of its original date. See Robin Express, Inc. v. Cuccaro, 247 Md. 262, 230 A.2d 671 (1967). Even upon an appeal to the courts `where the terms and manner of employment are undisputed, the Court should determine as a matter of law whether the injured workman was an employee or an independent contractor....' Charles Freeland & Sons v. Couplin, 211 Md. 160, 168, 126 A.2d 606, 611 (1956), quoting Williams Constr. Co. v. Bohlen, 189 Md. 576, 579, 56 A.2d 694, 695 (1948). Where, as here, it appears that the facts concerning Gould's employment status were undisputed  conceded by stipulation  it would exalt form over substance to require that the issue be nonetheless litigated by an evidentiary hearing. [14] The Commission  as did the Bureau  could have made its ruling upon the documentary evidence submitted with the claim. See Hathcock v. Loftin, 179 Md. 676, 22 A.2d 479 (1941). [15] What Judge Smith said for the Court in Mayor v. Shearwater Sailing Club, 265 Md. 280, 288 A.2d 887 (1972), seems here to be particularly applicable. He stated: Where a statute establishes a fact-finding body or commission and it has jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter its decisions on questions of fact are conclusive and final in the absence of fraud, unless an appeal is provided by law to some appellate or supervisory tribunal. Schluderberg, Etc. Co. v. Baltimore, 151 Md. 603, 613-14, 135 A. 412 (1926). 265 Md. at 285, 288 A.2d at 891. See also 2 Am.Jur.2d Administrative Law § 486, at 293-94 (1962). It would seem frivolous to suggest that Gould by a fraud stipulated himself out of workmen's compensation benefits as part of some insidious scheme to improperly obtain benefits from the Board when one considers that under the provisions of Art. 101, § 40 (b), upon any aggravation of his condition he would have had the right to reopen his compensation case and claim additional benefits. Since the Commission had jurisdiction over Gould's status and did, upon the undisputed facts, determine as a matter of law that he was an independent contractor, that decision was subject only to appellate review in the courts as provided by Art. 101, § 56; when no appeal was taken, the decision was final and not subject to being controverted in a collateral proceeding. See Taylor v. Ramsay Co., 139 Md. 113, 124, 114 A. 830, 834 (1921). See also Cogley v. Schnaper & Koren Constr. Co., 14 Md. App. 322, 327-28, 286 A.2d 819, 822-23 (1972). Although the doctrine of res judicata has been held not to apply to decisions of administrative agencies, see Gaywood Ass'n v. M.T.A., 246 Md. 93, 99, 227 A.2d 735, 738 (1967); see also L. Cohen, Some Aspects of Maryland Administrative Law, 24 Md.L.Rev. 1, 20-24 (1964), we here conclude that the decision by the Commission that Gould was an independent contractor was conclusive and not subject to collateral attack by the Board upon its own initiative. When the Board, contrary to the Commission's decision, undertook to make a finding that Gould was in fact an employee, it clearly arrogated unto itself a function reserved unto the courts and transcended the power vested in it as an administrative agency. [16] Its attempt to redetermine his status was clearly erroneous as a matter of law. When the Board undertook to reject Gould's claim because of a deliberate lack of cooperation on his part, it undertook to bring itself, as an administrative agency, within the concept of a law enforcement agency and overstrained the clear statutory language in Art. 26A, § 12 (a). In the context in which the term law enforcement agency is used in the statute, following immediately upon the provision concerning the time within which reports of any such crime are to be filed, it is clear that the term is intended to mean a showing of cooperation on the part of the claimant with those who are charged with the investigation of crime, the apprehension of the criminal and his prosecution under the law. All policemen, without regard to rank, have been held to be law enforcement officers. Frazier v. Elmore, 180 Tenn. 232, 173 S.W.2d 563 (1943). Similarly, an FBI agent is held to be a law enforcement officer. Otten v. United States, 210 F. Supp. 729 (S.D.N.Y. 1962). In Pratt v. State, 9 Md. App. 220, 226, 263 A.2d 247, 250 (1970), an officer commissioned by the governor to protect corporate mercantile establishments was held to be a law enforcement officer. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles of New York has been held not to be a law enforcement agency which might invade the secrecy of Grand Jury proceedings. See In re Special Report of Grand Jury, 192 Misc. 857, 77 N.Y.S.2d 438 (Erie Co. Ct. 1948). Similarly, a former member of a Grand Jury has been held not to be a law enforcement agent privileged from divulging names of those who had given him information concerning gambling. See In re Schwartz, 133 N.J.L. 79, 42 A.2d 564 (1945). Since the term was obviously intended to include the police, prosecutors and arguably, the courts and even the Grand Jury, the Board in applying the term to itself as the agency empowered to administer the Act clearly made an erroneous interpretation of law. Although, concededly, as the Board argues, there is an implied requirement of cooperation on the part of the claimant in that he must seasonably file his claim and file supporting data, there is no requirement anywhere in the article that he must successfully litigate a claim for workmen's compensation benefits, nor by filing such claim satisfy transitory subjective standards of the Board. We agree with the conclusion by the trial court that it would be a perversion of the function of an adjudicatory body to dispense [its] largesse only to those who are willing to be cooperative with [it]. Mistaken interpretations of law, however honestly arrived at, are held not to be within the exercise of sound administrative discretion and the legislative prerogative, but to be arbitrary and illegal. Dept. of Health v. Walker, supra; Hammond v. Love, supra ; McNulty v. Board of Election Supervisors, supra. See also Severn v. Baltimore, supra; and Walter v. Board of County Comm'rs of Montgomery County, 179 Md. 665, 22 A.2d 472 (1941). Where, as here, the Board usurped the power of the courts and exceeded its jurisdiction in redetermining Gould's status as an independent contractor and as well erroneously applied unto itself the provisions of Art. 26A, § 12 (a), concerning cooperation with law enforcement agencies, we think it singularly befitting under the holdings in State v. Jacob, supra ; Kalis v. Brown, supra ; Johnson v. Board of Zoning Appeals, supra ; Riggs v. Green, supra ; and Williamson v. Carnan, supra; that Gould's docketed appeal be appropriately considered as an application for certiorari. Having treated it as such, we affirm the decision of the lower court in its reversal of the decision made by the Board and in its remand of Gould's claim for further consideration. Order of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County affirmed; costs to be paid by the appellant. Eldridge, J., dissenting: Maryland Code (1957, 1973 Repl. Vol.), Art. 26A, § 10 (a), provides for judicial review of decisions of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board only where the Attorney General or the Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services believes that the award is improper. The statute mandates that There shall be no other judicial review of any decision made or action taken by the Board.... Such language, in my view, does more than merely preclude judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act, Code (1957, 1971 Repl. Vol.), Art. 41, § 255 (a). It prohibits judicial review whether by the Administrative Procedure Act, mandamus, certiorari, or otherwise. With respect to the basis for the circuit court's decision, I believe that where no constitutional right or issue of procedural due process is involved, and where no pre-existing personal or property right is present, the Legislature may constitutionally couple the award of a gratuity with a condition precluding judicial review. Therefore, I would reverse.