Court Opinion

ID: 9716931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:54:04.952888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:50.140053
License: Public Domain

KARWACKI, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority holds today that an officer of a close corporation who deliberately fails to purchase workers’ compensation insurance for himself cannot thereafter collect benefits from the State Uninsured Employers’ Fund when the officer is injured on the job. I respectfully dissent.
The majority’s holding directly contravenes the express language of the statute governing coverage under the Act of close corporation officers, in order to achieve a result which is admittedly more desirable but nonetheless incorrect. Moreover, the contrived and internally contradictory reasoning by which the majority reaches its result leaves the state of the law regarding workers’ compensation coverage of close corporation officers confused and vague. First, the majority’s holding effectively overrules past precedent, while expressly claiming not to do so. Second, the majority, through this opinion, arbitrarily determines standards by which the Fund should and should not pay its benefits, standards which should rightly be determined by the Legislature after informed research and debate. Finally, the majority opinion opens the door to untoward manipulation by the State of the concept of “waiver of notice,” because it finds the State did so waive where no such waiver has ever been affirmatively demonstrated or even claimed by the State.
I.
An employee hired and working in Maryland who has been accidently injured on the job, rendering the employee unable to work at all or at former capacity, is normally assured of financial support through the workers’ compensation statutory scheme. The Workers’ Compensation Act, Maryland Code (1991 Repl.Vol., 1995 Cum.Supp.), § 9-101 et seq. of the Labor *351and Employment Article, (hereinafter “the Act”), requires all employers to obtain workers’ compensation insurance, or to implement an approved self-insurance program; failure to do so can result in criminal prosecution of the employer, who is subject to a fine and even imprisonment for this criminal offense.1 In the event that an employer, whether negligently or in deliberate disregard of legal obligations, has not obtained workers’ compensation insurance, the injured employee can still receive financial assistance by applying to the state-operated Uninsured Employers’ Fund, Md.Code (1991 Repl. Vol.), § 9-1001 et seq. and § 10-301 et seq. of the Labor and Employment Article (hereinafter “the Fund”).
In the case before us, the injured worker/employee, nominally one of those for whose protection the Fund was initially created, also happened to be the president of the non-insured employer, a Maryland close corporation which he wholly owned with his wife. The claimant acknowledged himself to be personally responsible, in his capacity as president, for the corporation’s conscious and illegal failure to procure workers’ compensation insurance. Nevertheless, when he was injured, he filed a claim with the Workers’ Compensation Commission (hereinafter the “Commission”) and impled the Fund because his corporate employer was not insured. The Commission denied his claim on the basis that he was not a “covered employee” under the Act. Our purpose in granting certiorari in this case was to decide whether an injured “employee” who, unlike most others who claim benefits from the Fund, actually made the deliberate decision not to insure himself, is nevertheless a “covered employee.”
Despite Lutter’s responsibility for obtaining and failure to obtain workers’ compensation insurance, the interplay of the statutory provisions which govern workers’ compensation and the Fund leaves me no choice but to regard the claimant as a *352covered employee and entitled to benefits from the Fund. The majority, unfortunately, ignores the express language of the statute in order to avoid this admittedly unsatisfactory holding.
II.
The majority acknowledges that since Lutter’s close corporation did not submit a written notice to the Commission, “[a]t first glance, Lutter appears to be a covered employee within the meaning of § 9-206.” The opinion then goes on to state that “[t]he real question, however, is whether Lutter effectively exempted himself from his status as a covered employee ... by deciding, in his capacity as corporate president, not to purchase workers’ compensation insurance for himself.” The answer to the “real question,” according to the majority, is that Lutter did exempt himself by virtue of his failure to purchase insurance.
Neither the statute itself nor our precedents countenance such an answer. The Legislature quite explicitly stated as much in subsection (c)(2) of the statute governing coverage of close corporation officers, § 9-206 of the Act, which could not be more clear: “An election under subsection (b)(1) ... of this section is not effective until a corporation ... complies with [the written notice provision].” Yet, in spite of the mandatory and unambiguous language, the majority reads an implied alternative means of exemption into the statute, thereby effectively rewriting the plain language of the statute, and contravening the express purpose of § 9-206(c)(2).
Even reading the statute with the broadest of interpretations, I cannot infer from this plain language in subsection (c)(2) an underlying legislative intent that uninsured close corporate officers can be exempted by means other than written notice, particularly non-affirmative means such as failing to purchase insurance. The statute simply precludes the majority’s holding that Mr. Lutter’s failure to procure insurance is an implicitly valid means of exemption. Only written notice to the Commission and to its workers’ compen*353sation insurer serves to exempt close corporation officers from workers’ compensation coverage.
I find support for my interpretation not only in the plain language of the statute but also in the Revisor’s Note following the statute to which may be ascribed significant historical and interpretative weight, and in which the Code Revision Commission notes the explicit affirmative election of exemption requirement for close corporation officers only:
“The Labor and Employment Article Review Committee notes, for consideration by the General Assembly, that, while former Art. 101, § 67(4)(ii) required notice about each election [of exemption], only the election for an officer of a ‘close corporation’ is contingent on compliance.” (Emphasis added.)
Md.Code (1991 Repl.Vol.), § 9-206 of the Act.
Moreover, the history of § 9-206, contrary to the majority’s assessment, supports the expectation and intent of the Legislature that only the affirmative act of filing written notice of election of exemption would exempt a close corporation officer from coverage under the Act. In 1978, the General Assembly passed HB 908, which amended §§ 21 and 67(4) of the Act to exclude close corporation officers from automatic coverage unless they specifically opted for coverage through written notice to the insurer and the Commission naming the persons to be covered. Had an uninsured close corporation so notified the Commission that it wished to “opt-in” to coverage under the Act, the Commission would have been put on notice immediately that the employer was uninsured and would have been able to enforce the insurance provisions, before any action could arise involving the Fund.
The scanty but telling legislative history on these provisions indicates that after the amendments the Commission was flooded with notices from close corporation officers opting in to coverage under the Act. Therefore, during the General Assembly session in 1979, HB 780 was introduced “to correct [the] problem created by HB 908,” according to notations on the bill in the legislative bill file. The Legislature passed HB *354780, again amending §§21 and 67(4)2 and reversing its action of the year before. Now, close corporation officers were automatically covered under the Act unless they opted out, with the same requirements of written notice.
No doubt “opting out,” while it may have relieved the administrative burden on the Commission, set the stage for the instant case, for the Commission has no knowledge of the insurance status of any close corporation which does not choose to opt out of coverage for its officers under the Act. Without such knowledge, an injured close corporation officer can make a claim impleading the Fund before the Commission has the opportunity to enforce the mandatory insurance provisions, just as Lutter has done in the case before us. Nevertheless, it is absolutely clear that the Legislature intended that close corporation officers affirmatively “opt out” of coverage; it made no provisions for other forms of election of exemption, and reiterated the sole means of exemption by adding subsection (c)(2).
The majority posits that the history of the statute supports its holding, because the State Department of Fiscal Services’ fiscal note on the 1979 amendment stated that the State’s revenues and expenditures were not affected, and consequently the Legislature’s purpose could not have been “to provide free coverage from [the Fund] for officers of close corporations who decide not to purchase insurance and fail to notify the Commission of their decision.”
I agree that the Legislature did not have this purpose; legislatures do not usually have purposes so contrary to the interests of the State, and given the history of this legislation, I see no reason why a scenario such as the one before us would even have entered into the Legislature’s contemplation. The only evidence before the Legislature was that close corporations opted for coverage in such huge numbers that the statute needed to be rewritten to its present form to avoid *355administrative inconvenience and expense to the Commission. Clearly the vast majority of close corporations wanted coverage for their officers and acted responsibly in order to assure they had it. Nevertheless, a statute which is not purposefully drafted to achieve an unfortunate situation can still result in that unfortunate situation if inartfully written; Lutter’s situation, apparently extremely unusual, is a result of a significant gap in a statute which might have been written to avoid the situation if it had been raised. Such a scenario was not likely raised, however, and therefore the majority’s assertion that the Legislature did not intend for individuals such as Lutter to recover from the Fund says no more than that the Legislature never intends oversights in its statutory enactments.3 Nevertheless, they exist, and our job is to point them out rather than close them judicially.4
*356III.
In Inner Harbor Warehouse, Inc. v. Myers,, 321 Md. 363, 582 A.2d 1244 (1990), we refused to rewrite the statute in question, as we ought to refuse it in the case sub judice. The Court of Special Appeals appropriately relied on our holding in Inner Harbor to decide that Lutter was indeed a covered employee under the language of § 9-206’s predecessor, Art. 101, § 67(4)(ii). The claimant in Inner Harbor, Myers, much like Lutter, was the president of his own close corporation as well as an employee truck driver of the corporation. Myers, as an officer and decision-maker for the close corporation, deliberately did not carry workers’ compensation insurance. When Myers was seriously injured while working under a retainer agreement with Inner Harbor Warehouse, he filed a claim with the Commission naming Inner Harbor as his employer, or, in the alternative, as his statutory employer.5
Our analysis of Myers’ claim first required a determination that Myers was a covered employee under the Act. Inner Harbor maintained that he was not, as he had effectively exempted himself from coverage by failing to purchase workers’ compensation insurance when he was clearly the individual within his corporation responsible for doing so:
*357“Inner Harbor argues that although § 67 requires notice of election of non-coverage to be served on the insurance carrier and the WCC and no such notice was served, it was because Myers’ inaction rendered service of the notice impossible.”
Inner Harbor, 321 Md. at 376, 582 A.2d at 1250. We held unequivocally that Myers had not affirmatively exempted his corporation from coverage by his inaction:
“Here, it is Myers’ responsibility under § 67 to file notice with the WCC in order not [emphasis in original] to be covered by the protections of Article 101. The legislative mandate could not be clearer. Only the affirmative act of filing notice with the WCC exempts an employee from coverage; no such notice was filed, so G.K. Myers did not exempt Myers from coverage. Although we do not condone Myers’ actions in not purchasing insurance, he has not, by that action alone, proved his desire to be exempt.” (Emphasis added).
Id. at 377, 1251.
The parallels to Lutter’s situation are obvious. Lutter did not, any more than Myers, prove by his failure to purchase insurance that he wished to be exempt; the record reflects, in fact, that Lutter did not understand himself to be exempt, although we cannot say what exactly he did understand when he was given such faulty advice by his insurance agent. Moreover, regardless of what Lutter desired or understood, he simply did not comply with the written notice provision in the statute. Under the plain language of the statute and our explicit holding in Inner Harbor, Lutter did not exempt himself from coverage under the Act. When the majority holds that he did, the majority effectively overrules Myers and ought to do so explicitly.
IV.
The majority attempts to avoid the import of the plain statutory language of § 9-206(c)(2), as well as our holding in Inner Harbor, by construing the statutorily required notice to *358be solely for the benefit of the State (i.e., the Commission and the Fund), and theorizing that therefore the Commission is allowed to “waive” notice when failure to receive it is not in the State’s interest. The analysis is faulty on several levels.
a.
First, the majority assumes that the only time failure to receive notice is not in the State’s interest is when the State will have to pay benefits from the Fund. The majority attempts to distinguish Inner Harbor from the case sub judice on the sole basis that Myers, as culpable as Lutter for his lack of insurance, sought coverage from a statutory employer and not the Fund. Yet, if the only reason the case before us is distinguishable from Inner Harbor is on the basis of who pays, the logical extension of the reasoning is that it makes absolutely no difference whether Lutter was culpable or completely innocent. For example, if one fact in Inner Harbor changed—the statutory employer in Inner Harbor was uninsured—Myers would have been a candidate for Fund benefits, and under the holding today Myers would have been denied those benefits based on his culpability. The majority cannot have it both ways: either the Fund’s liability to pay is the cornerstone of the analysis and culpability is irrelevant, as it was in Inner Harbor, or culpability for failure to purchase insurance is the cornerstone, and therefore Inner Harbor is overruled.
b.
Second, of course, the notice provision is not only for the benefit of the State. Any close corporation officer who is not responsible for the purchase of workers’ compensation insurance for his or her company also benefits from the protection of a single required affirmative written notice of exemption. The explicit legislative notice requirement, as the sole method of exemption, ensures the “innocent” close corporation officer that the Fund will not be able to deny benefits regardless of the actions of the decision-makers in his corporation. The holding today destroys that protection by judicially opening *359the door to other means of exemption, rendering the statute open to manipulation by the State.
The statutes governing the creation and operation of the Fund, § 9-1001 et seq. and § 10-301 et seq. of the Labor and Employment Article, provide guidance as to the standards the Fund and the Commission must use to determine whether a claimant should receive Fund benefits. A review of the legislative history of the Fund reveals that the Fund was intended to be an “insurer of last resort,” and that the only eligibility requirement by which the Commission determines who receives benefits from the Fund is whether the claimant is a “covered employee.” Nothing in the recorded history of the legislation explicitly or implicitly indicates any legislative intention to limit the benefits available from the Fund based on criteria other than eligibility for workers’ compensation. We note that when the Fund requested a hearing to object to Lutter’s claim, the Commissioner who heard the case raised sua sponte the issue of covered employee status, we presume because he could not find in the statutory language any further direction as to Fund eligibility.
The legislative history reveals only a single eligibility criterion, “covered employee” status. Before the holding today, when the only apparent legislatively-set standard for payment was whether the claimant was a covered employee, the Fund could appeal only on the basis of the status of the claimant and whether any other insurance existed. After today, the gates are open, since the only legislative standard has now been supplemented with a judicially-created standard for receiving benefits from the Fund. That standard can be described as “lack of intentional failure to purchase workers’ compensation insurance for yourself.” Now, the Fund can develop virtually any argument to avoid paying benefits and the courts will have to consider it to determine if other judicially-created standards are advisable.
c.
Third, and of great concern to me, is the majority’s holding that the State “waived notice” merely by contesting Lutter’s *360claim. Even assuming, arguendo, that the State could waive notice under the statutory enactments and our precedents, I would still be compelled to find for Lutter because the State made no argument of waiver of notice to us, nor did it raise waiver at any stage in these proceedings.
V.
In Molony v. Shalom Et Benedictus, 46 Md.App. 96, 415 A.2d 648 (1980) the corporate officer was personally responsible as a representative of the corporate entity for failing to file with the Commission a report of any accident involving an employee. That corporate officer was also the employee who had been injured, and he filed his workers’ compensation claim 17 days after the statute of limitations ran, which meant his claim was completely barred. The Act also provides, however, that an employer’s failure to file a report tolls the statute of limitations on that particular workers’ compensation claim, and the claimant in Molony argued that since he had not filed the report for his employer, his claim as the employee was not barred. The Court of Special Appeals rejected his argument, even though the corporation was insured and the Fund was not liable to pay any benefits, because the claimant’s own negligent actions could not be used to gain an “unwarranted advantage.”
The majority’s use of Molony to bolster its holding only further illuminates the flaws in its analysis of the instant case. As I noted earlier, apparently the majority cannot decide whether it bases its holding on the deliberate and egregious actions of Lutter or on the fact that the Fund is being asked to pay benefits as a result of those actions. If the principle announced in Molony applies in the instant case, as the majority states, then, again, who pays benefits is irrelevant and the case hinges on the actions of the claimant. Therefore, the same principle would have to apply in Inner Harbor as well, for Myers also used his failure to file written notice to achieve the status of covered employee, thereby gaining an “unwarranted advantage” and thus receiving benefits from the statutory employer. The majority’s unwillingness to overrule *361Myers cannot be reconciled with its use of Molony to support its position.
VI.
I simply cannot agree with the Fund’s arguments to this Court that Lutter should be denied benefits. The statutory scheme as it presently reads does not allow such a result, and, as we have repeatedly held before, we will not fill a gap in a statutory scheme, particularly one as extensive as this Act, by supplying missing language or standards. See, e.g., Fairbanks v. McCarter, 330 Md. 39, 622 A.2d 121 (1993); Collier v. Connolley, 285 Md. 123, 400 A.2d 1107 (1979); Amalgamated Cas. Ins. Co. v. Helms, 239 Md. 529, 212 A.2d 311 (1965); Gregg v. Gregg, 199 Md. 662, 87 A.2d 581 (1952). Yet the majority has indeed filled the gap in a statutory scheme, and further done so in a manner which requires an explicit overruling of our 1991 decision in Inner Harbor.
The General Assembly created the Uninsured Employers’ Fund with the benevolent purpose of providing some financial assistance to injured workers whose employers failed to carry workers’ compensation insurance. It also established civil and criminal penalties for any employer failing to insure its workers, and it specifically protected the interests of officers of close corporations by automatically covering any who performed services on behalf of their corporations for monetary compensation. In the unusual case before us, in which the injured employee is also the close corporation officer criminally responsible for failing to purchase insurance, all three of these statutory purposes are relevant and are in conflict. We impermissibly intrude into the responsibilities of the Legislature when we attempt to resolve this conflict permanently through our holding today. Therefore, while I do not condone Lutter’s actions in failing to obtain insurance for himself, I would nonetheless affirm the holding of the Court of Special Appeals that Lutter is a covered employee and entitled to benefits from the Fund.
RODOWSKY and RAKER, JJ., join in this opinion.

. If an employer is a corporation, the corporate officer who has responsibility for the general management of the corporation is subject to these criminal penalties. Md.Code (1991 Repl.Vol.), §§ 9-1107 and 1108 of the Labor and Employment Article.

. These provisions were recodified at § 9-206 of the Act. The current provisions are not substantially different from the original legislation in language and effect.

. It is also possible that the Legislature, even if it did contemplate a scenario such as Lutter’s, believed, as I do, that the prospect of criminal prosecution and even incarceration for failure to purchase insurance would not be regarded lightly by the decision-makers in cióse corporations in Maryland.

. Our Legislature would have only to turn to a nearby state to find an example of a legislative solution to the question before us. New York's current Workers’ Compensation Law uses the “opt-in” approach to close corporation officers. Corporate officers such as Lutter who are sole or dual owners of close corporations are exempt from coverage under the workers’ compensation statutes unless they specifically elect to be covered:
"Any two executive officers of a corporation who at all times during the period involved between them own all of the issued and outstanding stock of such corporation and hold all such offices, provided, however, that each officer must own at least one share of stock, who are the executive officers of such corporation that has no other persons who are employees required to be covered under this chapter shall be deemed to be excluded from coverage under this chapter unless one or both officers elect to be covered. Such coverage may be effected by obtaining an insurance policy or, in the case of self-insurance, by the corporation submitting a form prescribed by the chair of the workers’ compensation board, giving notice that the corporation elects to bring one or both executive officers of such corporation named in the notice within coverage of this chapter.”
N.Y. Workers’ Compensation Law § 54(6)(e) (Consol. 1982, Cum.Supp. 1996). This provision contemplates the close corporation as in the instant case and, to avoid exactly the situation we have here, requires *356affirmative election of coverage by obtaining an insurance policy or qualifying as a self-insurer.
We note that the New York Legislature, as did Maryland's General Assembly, chose to address the anomaly of an injured employee who is also the executive corporate officer within the provisions concerning coverage under the workers' compensation laws, and not within the statutes establishing an uninsured employers’ fund. The implication is that the Fund pays compensation to anyone deemed "covered,” as an insurer of last resort; however, by requiring any corporate officer to elect coverage affirmatively by actually obtaining insurance, the New York Legislature avoided the scenario of a corporate officer who, failing to obtain insurance, is still "covered” under the Act.

. The term "statutory employer” denotes the principal contractor if it is liable to pay compensation benefits to a subcontractor or a subcontractor’s employee (the "statutory employee”) under § 9-508 of the Act. Section 9-508 is a recodification without substantive change of Art. 101, § 62, the statute in effect at the time Myers was injured.