Court Opinion

ID: 9774872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:36:43.698323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:17.431729
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent from the holding “that the Board properly determined that [Mrs.] Carven’s petition for a hearing was time barred under COMAR 22.0.04.06B.” The Circuit Court’s “MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER” includes the following analysis of the Board’s “time barred” argument:
On January 12, 2007, Elizabeth Carven filed a Petition for Hearing to the Board of Trustees on the issue of [her] eligibility for benefits under JRS. In response, SRPS Executive Director, R. Dean Kenderline, advised Petitioner that he would recommend that the Board of Trustees issue a summary decision and deny the requested relief. Id. at 1. In his letter, Kenderline explained that he believed the petition was untimely because it was not submitted within one hundred eighty (180) days of the May 24, 2004 letter from SRPS [to Commissioner Carven, her deceased husband].
In support of his finding that the petition was untimely, Kenderline cited COMAR 22.03.04.06[ (B) ]:
(B) Time Limitations. A petition for a hearing shall be filed within 180 days of the date that a claimant is given notice of an agency action pursuant to State Government Article, Section 10-207, Annotated Code of Maryland.
*416“Claimant” is defined as a participant “who has filed a request for hearing.” “Hearing” is defined as “a contested case hearing____” A “contested case” is defined as:
... a proceeding before an agency to determine: (I) a right, duty, statutory entitlement, or privilege of a person that is required by statute or constitution to be determined only after an opportunity for an agency hearing
The various actions taken by [Commissioner] Carven to resolve the eligibility issue before he submitted his application for JRS membership were preliminary and informal. As a result, the one hundred eighty (180) day time period did not begin to run from the date of the May 6, 2004 letter as Respondent contends.
Since [Commissioner] Carven did not apply for a membership in JRS until June 17, 2006, he was not a “claimant” within the meaning of the aforementioned regulation. As a result, [he] had no “right, duty, statutory entitlement, or privilege” to challenge his denial of JRS membership until after the September 7, 2006 “rejection” letter. Thus, Kenderline and the Board erred in concluding that [Mrs.] Carven’s request for hearing was time barred. [Mrs.] Carven was not subject to the one hundred eighty (180) day time limitation as of the May 24, 2004 letter from SRPS providing notice of Agency action.
(Footnotes omitted).
I agree with that analysis. Because the ambiguous CO-MAR regulation at issue applies to a remedial statute, the regulation should be liberally construed in favor of the claimant. In my opinion, if the Board actually thought that the Executive Director’s May 24, 2004 response was providing Commissioner Carven with “notice of Agency action,” that correspondence should have expressly advised him about both his right to petition for a hearing and the time limitation on that right.1 Moreover, I have no doubt whatsoever that if *417Commissioner Carven had filed a petition for hearing as soon as he received the Executive Director’s May 24, 2004 response, the Board would have denied the petition as “premature.” I would therefore hold that there is no merit in the argument that Mrs. Carven’s Petition was filed too late.
In addition to rejecting the Board’s “time barred” argument, this Court should proceed to apply the current version of SPP § 28-408 to the merits of Mrs. Carven’s claim.
Maryland consistently has followed the rule that “an appellate court is bound to decide a case according to existing laws, even though a judgment rightful when rendered by the court below should be reversed as a consequence,” as Judge Markell, for the Court, repeated in Woman’s Club v. State Tax Comm., 195 Md. 16, 19 [, 72 A.2d 742, 743 (1950) ] (or, it may be noted, even when a judgment wrong when rendered is made right by the change in the law). See also for this proposition that a change in the law after a decision below and before final decision by the appellate Court will be applied by that Court unless vested or accrued substantive rights would be disturbed or unless the legislature shows a contrary intent, Keller v. State, 12 Md. 322 [(1858)]; Day v. Day, 22 Md. 530 [(1865)]; Gordy v. Prince, 175 Md. 688 [, 7 A.2d 611 (1939) ]; Cockerham v. Children’s [Aid ] Society, 185 Md. 97 [, 43 A.2d 197 (1945) ]; and Tudor Arms Apts. v. Shaffer, 191 Md. 342 [, 62 A.2d 346 (1948) ].
Yorkdale v. Powell, 237 Md. 121, 124, 205 A.2d 269, 270 (1964).
Rather than remand this ease to the Circuit Court “with directions to dismiss the action,” this Court should reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court, and remand with directions that the Circuit Court reverse the decision of the Board and *418remand Mrs. Carven’s claim to the Board for a computation of the benefits to which she is entitled.2
Chief Judge BELL and Judge HARRELL have authorized me to state that they join this dissenting opinion.

. Because of the understandable confusion over the issue of whether a particular letter written by a bureaucrat does or does not constitute a *417“notice of agency action,” “there oughta be a law ” requiring that, when an agency provides what it considers to be a “notice of action” to a person who is required to challenge the agency’s action within a limited period of time, the notice must expressly advise the recipient of any time limitation on the recipient’s right to challenge the action.

. The Board would have no difficulty in calculating the amount of money that it should have collected from Commissioner Carven during his service on the Workers Compensation Commission, and deducting that amount from the benefits to which Mrs. Carven is entitled under the current law.