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Stokes v. American Airlines2/1/2002
Lewis Stokes and his employer, American Airlines, Inc., return to this Court on a seven-year-old workers' compensation claim. Stokes originally lost his claim before the Workers' Compensation Commission, but won an award from a jury in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. We then published an opinion in February 1998, remanding the case to the Commission for reconsideration. American Airlines Corp. v. Stokes, 120 Md. App. 350, 707 A.2d 412 (1998) ("Stokes I"). Thereafter, the Commission granted Stokes a compensation award, but, on petition for judicial review, the circuit court ruled, as a matter of law, that he was not entitled to any award. That judgment violated the mandate of Stokes I. Accordingly, we reverse it and remand for further proceedings in the circuit court.
Stokes I
On August 5, 1994, Lewis Stokes injured his back while unloading baggage from an American Eagle plane. About five months later, he filed a claim for workers' compensation against American. Stokes testified at the Commission hearing, along with three of American's supervisors and one of its employees. The testimony focused on Stokes's conduct before and after the alleged injury; no medical experts testified. Stokes did submit, as exhibits, the progress reports of the physician, radiologist, and chiropractor who treated him between August 1994 and January 1995. These reports indicated that Stokes suffered a "lumbar radiculopathy," but did not examine the cause of the problem. The Commission denied Stokes's claim, finding that he did not sustain an accidental injury in the course of his employment and that the alleged injury did not cause his subsequent back pain.
Stokes petitioned the circuit court for review and requested a jury trial. The jury exercised de novo review, although it was instructed to treat the Commission's decision as presumptively correct. See Md. Code (1991, 1999 Repl. Vol.), Lab. & Empl. ยง 9-745(b)(1). Again, Stokes testified and offered his physician's reports, but did not present any expert medical testimony. American responded with the videotaped deposition of a physician, who denied any causation between Stokes's injury and subsequent disability. Apparently persuaded by Stokes's evidence, however, the jury reversed the Commission's order and awarded him compensation from August 5, 1994 through March 20, 1996. American then moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, arguing that Stokes failed to present sufficient evidence of an accidental injury and any causation between the injury and later disability. That motion was denied.
American appealed the denial of its motion to this Court. We upheld the jury's determination that Stokes suffered an accidental injury, but reversed its nineteen-month award of compensation. In our view, whether Stokes's injury caused a compensable disability was a complicated medical question, which could result in an affirmative answer only if an expert guided the jury to that end. We specifically noted three factors that negated Stokes's claim: (1) procedurally, the jury was required to treat the Commission's decision as presumptively correct; (2) the evidence documented his long history of chronic back deterioration; and (3) the lone medical expert that testified for the defense discounted the alleged link between the injury and the disability. Against the weight of those factors, Stokes's evidence was, in our opinion, too light to justify a verdict in his favor.
Having upheld the jury's finding of an injury, but not its calculation of disability, we could have reversed the circuit court's judgment outright. Maryland Rule 8-604(d), however, also allowed us to remand the matter if the "substantial merits" of the c
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