Hall v. C & P Telephone Co., 84-5897

• Decision Date: 24 June 1986
• Docket Number: No. 84-5897,84-5897
• Parties: Ronald L. HALL and Laura Hall, Appellants v. C & P TELEPHONE COMPANY.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 1354

793 F.2d 1354

253 U.S.App.D.C. 368

Ronald L. HALL and Laura Hall, Appellants v. C & P TELEPHONE COMPANY.

No. 84-5897.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Jan. 10, 1986.

Decided June 24, 1986.

Mark J. Brice, with whom Joseph H. Koonz, Jr., Carolyn McKenney, and Roger C. Johnson, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellants.

Donald P. Maiberger, Washington, D.C., for appellee.

Before STARR, Circuit Judge, and WRIGHT and MACKINNON, Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Senior Circuit Judge WRIGHT.

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge:

We review the dismissal for want of subject matter jurisdiction of appellants' suit for, inter alia, intentional infliction of emotional distress and bad-faith refusal to make timely workers' compensation benefits payments. In issuing its judgment the District Court deferred to the view of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that such tort suits were precluded by the District of Columbia Workers' Compensation Act of 1928, 36 D.C.Code Sec. 501 et seq. (1973) (repealed) (the D.C. Compensation Act). ¹ By its terms the D.C. Compensation Act merely applies the provisions of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act of 1927, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 901 et seq. (1982) (the Longshoremen's Act), to the District of Columbia. ² This case therefore calls into question the application of Erie ³ principles to the construction by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals of a special type of statute: an Act of Congress that applies exclusively to the District of Columbia but whose substance merely mirrors that of another federal statute that applies to the nation as a whole. Because we find that the D.C. Compensation Act is a "local" law, we believe deference to the construction of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals was proper under the circumstances. We therefore affirm the District Court's judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

Appellants' complaint alleges that on or about October 11, 1979 appellant Ronald Hall suffered an employment-related back injury while employed as a cable splicer by appellee C & P Telephone Company (C & P). ⁴ Ronald Hall filed for workers' compensation benefits under the applicable statute, the D.C. Compensation Act. On July 23, 1981 an Administrative Law Judge in the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, ordered C & P, as Ronald Hall's self-insured employer, to pay compensation benefits as well as all past and future medical and hospital expenses arising out of the October 11, 1979 accident.

Appellants allege that for nearly three years C & P failed to reimburse Ronald Hall on a timely basis for the bulk of his injury-related medical expenses due under the ALJ's award. ⁵ They claim that during that time Ronald Hall was subjected to the threat of credit action by his health care providers and that their marriage suffered because of the financial strain produced by appellee's failure to make timely payments.

On May 2, 1984 appellants filed a complaint in the District Court alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress and bad-faith refusal to make timely payments. ⁶ Appellee filed a motion to dismiss their complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. ⁷ In support of its motion appellee cited a recent opinion of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Garrett v. Washington Air Compressor Co., 466 A.2d 462 (D.C.C.A.1983). Appellee argued that Garrett effectively held that the exclusivity provisions of the D.C. Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 905(a) (1982), barred any court from taking jurisdiction of appellants' independent civil claims. See defendant-appellee's Memorandum of Points and Authorities in support of its motion to dismiss filed June 11, 1984 at 7.

On November 28, 1984 the District Court entered an order granting appellee's motion to dismiss. In so doing the court expressly relied on Garrett 's analysis of the exclusivity provisions of the D.C. Compensation Act. This appeal ensued.

Our decision turns on resolution of two issues: First, whether the District Court properly deferred to the opinion of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Garrett construing the preclusive effect of the D.C. Compensation Act. Second, assuming the District Court was bound to follow the Garrett interpretation of the statute, whether appellants' claims are barred by that construction.

II. DEFERENCE TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

A. The Legal Standard Governing Deference to Construction of "Local" Federal Statutes by the D.C. Court of Appeals

It is now well established that this court will apply Erie principles to the decisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. See Lee v. Flintkote Co., 593 F.2d 1275, 1278 n. 14 (D.C.Cir.1979). Noting the Court Reform Act's command that the D.C. Court of Appeals be treated as the "highest court" of the District, the Lee court ruled that Erie principles should apply to the decisions of the D.C. Court of Appeals so as to limit forum-shopping and promote uniformity in the rules of decision governing local affairs. Id.

Our case, however, does not concern deference to development of common law principles by the D.C. courts. The "local" law at issue in this case is an Act of Congress that amended the District of Columbia Code. Congress acted pursuant to its plenary authority to exercise legislative power for the District of Columbia. U.S. Const. Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 17. Moreover, it is a statute that merely applies the terms of another federal statute: the Longshoremen's Act. The latter is an act of national scope as to which there is a clear federal interest in uniform application. An unadorned statement of deference to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals would be mechanical at best under the circumstances. Although this court has on occasion applied Erie principles to construction of Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 17 statutes, ⁸ our research reveals no case where deference was accorded a District of Columbia Court of Appeals construction of a "local" congressional enactment that simply applied the terms of a "national" statute.

The Supreme Court, however, has addressed the analogous question of the deference it will give to the D.C. Court of Appeals' construction of Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 17 statutes. In Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U.S. 363, 94 S.Ct. 1723, 40 L.Ed.2d 198 (1974), the Court reviewed an alleged right to a jury trial for an action brought under 16 D.C.Code Sec. 1501 et seq. (1973), the statutory provision governing eviction of tenants for nonpayment of rent. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals had held that the statute in question did not provide for a right to a jury trial. Prior to 1970 another provision of the D.C.Code, 13 D.C.Code Sec. 702, had provided for a right to jury trial in such eviction actions.

In deferring to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals' view of congressional intent, the Supreme Court noted that the purpose of the Court Reform Act of 1970, Pub.L. No. 91-358 Sec. 142(5)(A), 84 STAT. 552, was to give the District of Columbia a court system " 'comparable to those of the states * * *.' " 416 U.S. at 367, quoting H.R.Rep. No. 91-907, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 23 (1970). The Court reasoned that this legislative intent strongly suggests that federal courts ought to give as much deference to local courts' interpretation of Acts of Congress "directed toward the District," id. at 368, 94 S.Ct. at 1726, as they do to their construction of the common law. The Court therefore explicitly stated that

[t]his new structure plainly contemplates that the decisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on matters of local law--both common law and statutory law--will be treated by this Court in a manner similar to the way in which we treat decisions of the highest court of a State on questions of state law. * * *

Id. (emphasis added).

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals read the congressional repeal of Section 13-702 as barring jury trials on any claim brought under 16 D.C.Code Sec. 1501 et seq. The Supreme Court deferred to the statutory construction of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, forcing the Court to face the petitioner's Seventh Amendment claim.

The Court concluded that it would defer to local courts' construction of Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 17 statutes to the same degree that it would defer to their interpretation of common law questions: in either case it would accept the view of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals unless it found "egregious error." Id. at 369, 94 S.Ct. at 1726. ⁹

We are aware that there are significant functional differences between the Supreme Court's review of the decisions of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and this court's attempt to apply local law in a diversity case. We also note, however, that the Supreme Court's analysis was based on the same general perspective as that articulated by this court in Lee v. Flintkote Co., supra, 593 F.2d at 1278 n. 14: a prudential willingness to defer to the local courts, as suggested by the purpose and effect of the Court Reform Act of 1970. We are satisfied that the Supreme Court's view of the purpose of the Court Reform Act should guide us here as well.

Thus in applying this standard to this case, we must simply consider the relationship between the Longshoremen's Act and the D.C. Compensation Act. Because it appears that the Compensation Act is a "local" law, i.e., a statute passed pursuant to Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 17, we find that deference to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals was in order.

B. The Local Character of the D.C. Compensation Act

Although the D.C. Compensation Act merely incorporates the terms of the Longshoremen's Act, this court has long applied these statutes in operationally distinguishable fashion. Thus in Gudmundson v. Cardillo, 126 F.2d 521 (D.C.Cir.1942), this court held that it would not apply the doctrine of Crowell v....