Maryland court rules exclusivity shields employer from suit by nondependent child

A divided Maryland Supreme Court said an employer that complies with the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act is shielded from wrongful death actions brought by a nondependent adult child.

John Ledford fell from a retaining wall and died in February 2021 while working for Jenway Contracting Inc. He was survived by his adult daughter, Summer Ledford, who was nondependent on her father and was thus not eligible for workers compensation death benefits. Instead, she sued Jenway under the state’s Wrongful Death Act, as chronicled in Summer Ledford v. Jenway Contracting Inc., filed July 1.

The circuit court granted Jenway’s motion to dismiss, and the appellate court affirmed.

High court justices split 4-3 in favor of affirming the appellate court decision and finding that exclusive remedy prohibited the wrongful death lawsuit, with the majority ruling it would be unreasonable to subject compliant employers to lawsuits from nondependent relatives when the employers were otherwise assured that their liability was limited to the confines of the Workers’ Compensation Act.

“Indeed, it would render their immunity effectively meaningless when there are nondependent children involved, which, in addition to being unreasonable, flies in the face of our basic statutory interpretation principles and would undermine the fundamental framework of the act,” the majority opinion says. “Such changes should be made by the General Assembly, not this court.”

Three justices dissented, with one arguing that exclusivity doesn’t apply to the nondependent children of a covered employee by statute, so the court’s decision expands the plain meaning of the law.

“The unambiguous meaning of this language is that compensation provided under the [Workers’ Compensation Act] to a covered employee and a covered employee’s dependents takes the place of any right of action a covered employee or the covered employee’s dependents have against any person for accidental personal injury,” the dissenting opinion states. “The exclusive remedy provision imposes no such limitation on a covered employee’s nondependent survivors.”

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.