177 Md. App. 327 - Smith v. Howard County’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “If the claimant does not prevail before the Commission and elects to proceed in circuit court by way of a jury trial, the parties retain their initial burdens of proof and persuasion. For practical purposes, this means that the claimant has the burden of producing a prima facie ease before the trial court, lest he suffer a directed verdict against him, just as he, as the original proponent, had that same burden before the Commission. If, on the other hand, the claimant prevails before the Commission, the burden of proof, which was borne by the claimant before the Commission, switches to the employer before the circuit court. In such a case, the decision of the Commission is, ipso facto, the claimant’s prima facie case. Indeed, the successful claimant, as the non-moving party on appeal, has no burden of production. The claimant cannot, therefore, suffer a summary judgment (or, perhaps, a directed verdict at the end of the [employer’s] case) against it on the ground that it failed to produce a prima facie case. This switching of burdens, however, is based on the Commission’s actual consideration of conflicting evidence as to essential facts or the deduction of permissible but diverse inferences therefrom. It is the Commission’s solution of such conflict [that] is presumed to be correct, and the party attacking its solution must demonstrate why it is erroneous, if at all.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 178 Md. App. 702 - Dove v. Montgomery County Board of Education

2. “A true trial de novo [is] described as one in which all of the parties [are] put back at square one to begin again just as if the adjudication being challenged had never occurred. Accordingly, “[w]hichever party ... had the burden of production and the burden of persuasion before the Commission would again have those same burdens before the circuit court.” An “essential trial de novo ” differs, however, due to the conditions required by [ ] § 9—745(b)—that the decision of the Commission be presumed as prima facie correct, and that the burden of proof be placed on the party attacking the decision.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 178 Md. App. 702 - Dove v. Montgomery County Board of Education

3. “For an occupational disease to be compensable, it is not sufficient for the condition to merely result from the em ployment in which the Claimant was engaged at the time. Instead, the occupational disease that is alleged must be due to the nature of the[sic] of an employment in general in which the hazards of the occupational disease exist. Employment in this context does not mean the specific job in which the Claimant was working; it means the profession or general occupation in which the Claimant is engaged.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 189 Md. App. 171 - Black & Decker Corp. v. Humbert