Charles P. Young Co. v. DEPT. OF EMPLOY.

• Decision Date: 01 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-AA-582.,94-AA-582.
• Citation: 681 A.2d 451
• Parties: CHARLES P. YOUNG COMPANY and Greater New York Mutual Insurance Company, Petitioners, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SERVICES, Respondent, Pennie K. Petrie, Intervenor.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

681 A.2d 451

CHARLES P. YOUNG COMPANY and Greater New York Mutual Insurance Company, Petitioners, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SERVICES, Respondent, Pennie K. Petrie, Intervenor.

No. 94-AA-582.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Submitted September 28, 1995.

Decided August 1, 1996.

Gerald Herz and Alan D. Sundburg were on the brief, Washington, DC, for petitioners.

Allen J. Lowe was on the brief, Washington, DC, for intervenor.

Garland Pinkston, Jr., Acting Corporation Counsel at the time the briefs were filed, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel, filed a statement in lieu of brief, for respondent.

Before FERREN, TERRY, and SCHWELB, Associate Judges.

TERRY, Associate Judge:

Charles P. Young Company ("Young" or "the employer") and its insurance carrier seek review of a decision by the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services (DOES) granting a request for workers' compensation filed by Pennie Petrie, one of Young's employees. Ms. Petrie claimed that she had suffered emotional and psychological injury resulting from job-related stress. A hearing on her claim was held by a DOES hearing examiner. Shortly after it had ended, Young moved to reopen the record for additional testimony in light of new allegations made by Ms. Petrie at the hearing. This motion and a subsequent motion for reconsideration were both denied. A few months later the hearing examiner issued a compensation order directing the employer to pay Ms. Petrie temporary total disability benefits from March 27, 1990, to the present and continuing, and all related medical expenses.

Young appealed to the Director of DOES, asserting three errors: first, that the hearing examiner's refusal to reopen the record was arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion; second, that the examiner's finding that Ms. Petrie was a credible witness was not supported by substantial evidence; and third, that the finding that Ms. Petrie's disability arose out of her employment was unsupported by substantial evidence and was contrary to law. The Director affirmed the hearing examiner's rulings with respect to the motion to reopen the record and Ms. Petrie's credibility, but remanded the case for further proceedings on the issue of whether she had suffered a compensable injury. The employer filed a motion with the Director seeking reconsideration of the first two issues, but it was denied.

The hearing examiner in due course issued a further order, ruling that sufficient evidence had been presented to establish that Ms. Petrie's emotional injury was compensable because it arose out of and in the course of her employment. After that order had become final under D.C.Code § 36-322(b)(2) (1993), Young and its insurance carrier filed with this court a petition for review, presenting the same three assignments of error. We find no merit in their arguments, and accordingly affirm.

I

Pennie Petrie went to work in 1982 for Charles P. Young Company, a financial printer. She was first hired as a typesetter, was promoted to assistant supervisor, and, at the time she went on sick leave in March 1990, was one of three shift supervisors.¹ In August 1989 financial difficulties forced the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. When work decreased significantly, Ms. Petrie's immediate superior, Jerry Crawford, the manager and general foreman, resigned from his job.²

In early 1990, Gerard Blankenship, the manager of customer service, assumed the position and responsibilities formerly held by Mr. Crawford. Ms. Petrie testified that she was upset by this change because she had not been informed of it, and because Mr. Blankenship immediately reorganized the typesetting department, even though he lacked any typesetting experience. When other employees complained to her about the changes, she told Blankenship about their complaints, but "he just didn't seem to care." Ms. Petrie's problems with Mr. Blankenship increased when he made derogatory remarks about her gender and her appearance in front of co-workers.³ She also said that Blankenship intentionally undermined her authority in the presence of subordinates and encouraged other employees to do likewise.⁴ Ms. Petrie was further upset by the fact that Mr. Blankenship operated his own printing business on the side, but on company time.⁵

Ms. Petrie's testimony was corroborated by George Chen, a former shift supervisor and co-worker. Mr. Chen testified that Blankenship intentionally harassed Ms. Petrie, called her demeaning names and made offensive remarks, and coaxed other employees to subvert her authority.⁶ He also confirmed that Blankenship was performing outside private work on the employer's premises, and said that Blankenship had offered him $300 a week under the table to assist in this enterprise.

Young called Gerard Blankenship and George Berger, another shift supervisor, to testify on its behalf. Mr. Blankenship denied making demeaning and offensive remarks to Ms. Petrie, harassing her, or encouraging other employees to do so. He said that his friendship and professional relationship with Ms. Petrie had deteriorated because of changes in Young's management structure brought on by the resignation of Mr. Crawford and by the company's financial difficulties. He also testified that Ms. Petrie had a chronic absenteeism problem and that she had become an overbearing supervisor who was instigating problems with other employees. Mr. Blankenship admitted that he conducted his own printing business on the side, but explained that his employer condoned it because he was printing in an unrelated field.⁷

Mr. Berger testified that Blankenship never used derogatory or offensive remarks toward or about Ms. Petrie while in his presence, and that Ms. Petrie never complained to him about any harassment. He did concede, however, that another employee had used a derogatory nickname to refer to Ms. Petrie behind her back. Berger also acknowledged that some employees, including himself, did personal print jobs on company time, but he did not know whether Mr. Blankenship had done so.

There was conflicting medical testimony as to whether Ms. Petrie's psychiatric problems arose out of, and occurred in the course of, her employment. After going on sick leave in March 1990, Ms. Petrie sought medical treatment from Dr. Leopoldo Cintron-Oliver, a psychiatrist. Dr. Cintron-Oliver testified that Ms. Petrie was suffering from an adjustment reaction that resulted from a hostile work environment. He concluded that her emotional condition was directly attributable to the various forms of harassment to which she was subjected at work. Dr. Cintron-Oliver also stated that Ms. Petrie's condition would persist if she continued to work for Young.

Dr. Brian Schulman, a psychiatrist, testified on behalf of the employer. He had written a report on Ms. Petrie after conducting an independent medical evaluation and reviewing Dr. Cintron-Oliver's treatment records.⁸ In that report Dr. Schulman diagnosed Ms. Petrie as suffering from clinical depression that was neither precipitated, aggravated, nor accelerated by her work environment.⁹ Dr. Schulman disagreed with the diagnosis of job-related stress because Ms. Petrie was no longer exposed to the stressful work situation, yet her condition had not improved. Instead, he concluded that Ms. Petrie's clinical depression preceded the events at work and opined that it might have been brought on by her history of alcohol abuse, the death of her father, and her divorce.

On cross-examination, Dr. Schulman conceded that if Ms. Petrie had in fact been harassed significantly, if she had been the object of overt hostility from her supervisor, or if her authority had been undermined, then it would be normal for her to feel "discouraged" and "victimized" by her work environment. However, Dr. Schulman remained adamant that Ms. Petrie's psychological problems existed before the alleged incidents at work and that they manifested themselves only when work dropped off dramatically because of the company's financial difficulties.

In his compensation order on remand, the hearing examiner rejected the testimony of Dr. Schulman, calling it "contradictory, speculative, and conclusory." The examiner gave several reasons for his disbelief of Dr. Schulman's medical opinion. First, when Dr. Schulman examined Ms. Petrie, he was unaware of all the allegations of harassment, profanity, and abuse about which she had testified at the hearing. Second, despite his assertion that Ms. Petrie's psychological problems were of long standing, the doctor had conceded that persons who had to work in such a hostile environment "might feel victimized and discouraged by their circumstances." Finally, the examiner found Dr. Schulman's testimony less persuasive than Dr. Cintron-Oliver's because Schulman's conclusion that Ms. Petrie suffered from a chronic emotional difficulty was an assumption based only on past events in her life. In contrast, the examiner noted that Dr. Cintron-Oliver had examined Ms. Petrie over a period of six to seven months, and that his testimony was corroborated by that of her co-workers. Thus the hearing examiner concluded that the actual conditions at work caused or contributed to Ms. Petrie's emotional injury, and that they could have done so even in a person not predisposed to such injury.

II

The standards governing our review of any administrative order are well settled. "Review by this court of administrative agency decisions, including those under the workers' compensation act, is limited." Sturgis v. District of Columbia Department of Employment Services, 629 A.2d 547, 551 n. 3 (D.C.1993) (citation omitted). "We cannot retry the facts or rehear the evidence. Our task is simply to determine whether there is substantial evidence to support the decision of the Department.... If there is, our consideration of the case is at an end." Shepherd v. District of Columbia...