Court Opinion

ID: 9644394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:54:54.811326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:22.284296
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, J.,

dissenting:

When this case was previously before the Court, Judge Levine and I dissented from the order remanding the case for further proceedings. We took the position that even if the effect of the supplemental allowance provision of Ch. 832 of the Acts of 1973, Maryland Code (1957, 1964 Repl. Vol., 1978 Cum. Supp.), Art. 101, § 36 (10), were to cause some additional payments to the Subsequent Injury Fund by insurance carriers or self-insured employers, this would not *585make the statute unconstitutional. Cooper v. Wicomico County; 278 Md. 596, 604, 366 A. 2d 55, 60 (1976). I continue to adhere to that position and thus would reverse.
The law creating the Subsequent Injury Fund provides for a mandatory compensation plan administered by the State and supported by an assessment on all insurers or employers based on prior awards against them. When the Fund becomes impaired, requiring additional payments, all insurers or self-insured employers, and not only the appellees, are required to make the additional payments. Payments to the Fund are in the nature of a general tax assessed against members of a certain group to cover expenses of administering a government program involving that group. The fact that the Legislature may choose to increase the benefits of the program in order to alleviate the severe harm from continuing inflation, having the effect of increasing the amount of contributions due from all insurers or employers, does not constitute a deprivation of any constitutional right of the employer. See Allied American Co. v. Comm’r, 219 Md. 607, 150 A. 2d 421 (1959).
A similar legislative program, including supplemental payments to those already receiving workmen’s compensation benefits and providing for reimbursement from a Second Injury and Contingency Fund with funds generated by an additional tax on employers and insurance carriers, was held by the Supreme Court of Delaware not to violate either the Contract Clause or the Due Process Clause in Price v. All American Engineering Company, 320 A. 2d 336 (Del. 1974). See also, e.g., Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U. S. 1, 14-21, 96 S. Ct. 2882, 49 L.Ed.2d 752 (1976); National Independent Coal Operator’s Ass’n v. Brennan, 372 F. Supp. 16 (D. D.C.), aff’d, 419 U. S. 955, 95 S. Ct. 216, 42 L.Ed.2d 172 (1974); Clark v. Chrysler Corporation, 377 Mich. 140, 139 N.W.2d 714 (1966); Lahti v. Fosterling, 357 Mich. 578, 99 N.W.2d 490 (1959); Schmidt v. Wolf Contracting Co., 269 App. Div. 201, 55 N.Y.S.2d 162 (1945), aff’d per curiam, 295 N. Y. 748, 65 N.E.2d 568 (1946). Consequently, I am of the view that the increase in costs as a result of the supplemental allowance mandated by the Legislature does not violate the appellees’ constitutional rights.
*586Moreover, Gange Lumber Co. v. Rowley, 326 U. S. 295, 66 S. Ct. 125, 90 L. Ed. 85 (1945), relied upon by the majority, does not support its position. Gange involved a statute extending the period of time for an employee to apply for additional compensation payments. The statute allowed an employee to file for additional compensation even though the claim would have been barred under the limitations provision in effect at the time of the injury. The employer in Gange, as here, argued that the statute, in permitting additional payments which could not háve been allowed under the law in effect at the time of the injury, would result in an unconstitutional increase of payments due the fund. In rejecting this argument, the Supreme Court made it clear that even if increased payment did result, this would not render the statute unconstitutional (326 U. S. at 303, 305, emphasis supplied):
“A mere increase in premium, under a compulsory and publicly administered accident insurance plan, designed to operate at cost based upon general and individual experience rather than at an arbitrary figure, and surrounded with adequate procedural safeguards against arbitrary action, would not seem to be so obviously harsh or arbitrary in its effect upon employers generally that it could be said without question to be beyond the scope of the state’s regulatory power or in violation of the due process prohibition of the federal Constitution.
“Some substantial and more immediate harm must be shown to present a justiciable question concerning the state’s power. The injury, as it appears from this record, is neither so certain nor so substantial as to justify a finding, upon that showing, that appellant’s substantial rights have been or will be invaded by allowance and payment of the award.”
*587Finding no constitutional infirmities, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.
The majority reiterates the conclusion in its earlier opinion “that to give effect to a legislative enactment increasing the amount payable to an employee to a sum greater than that payable at the time of the injury would impermissibly alter a substantial term of an existing contract between an employer and an employee (and derivatively as to an insurer). 278 Md. at 600.” To support this proposition the majority relied upon Loveless v. State Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner, 155 W. Va. 264, 184 S.E.2d 127 (1971), cited in 278 Md. at 600. It is noteworthy that this decision was explicitly overruled by the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia recently in Lester v. State Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner, W. Va., 242 S.E.2d 443, 450 n. 13 (1978). As in Gauge, the court in Lester was faced with a constitutional attack on a legislative enactment extending the time for filing a workmen’s compensation claim, which, if not for this statute, would have been barred under the earlier law. Finding no constitutional deficiency in the operation of the statute, the court upheld the action of the legislature. In so doing, the court observed (242 S.E.2d at 450-451, emphasis supplied):
“[D]espite our course of decisions in this area of the law, [we] are of the opinion that the rights and duties under our workmen’s compensation statute are no longer contractual but grow out of the employer-employee status to which the law attaches certain duties and responsibilities. The liability of employers arises from the law itself, rather than from any agreement of the parties. The only significance adhering to the contractual relationship is the existence of an employer-employee relationship. Once the employer-employee relationship is established, the statute imposes certain duties and responsibilities on the parties to that relationship.”
*588This represents a much more realistic view of important social legislation, like workmen’s compensation statutes, than the fiction adopted by the majority here.
Therefore, for the reasons expressed above and in the prior dissenting opinion in this case, I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court.
Judge Cole has authorized me to state that he concurs with these views.