Smith v. Does

• Decision Date: 25 October 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-AA-927.,05-AA-927.
• Citation: 934 A.2d 428
• Parties: Anthony SMITH, Petitioner, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SERVICES, Respondent, Federal Data Corporation and AIG Claim Services, Intervenors.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

934 A.2d 428

Anthony SMITH, Petitioner, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT SERVICES, Respondent Federal Data Corporation and AIG Claim Services, Intervenors.

No. 05-AA-927.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued September 21, 2006.

Decided October 25, 2007.

Kirk D. Williams, for petitioner.

Edward E. Schwab, Deputy Solicitor General for the District of Columbia, Robert J. Spagnoletti, Attorney General for the District of Columbia at the time the statement was filed, and Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General for the District of Columbia, filed a statement in lieu of brief for respondent.

Joel E. Ogden, Baltimore, MD, with whom Lisa A. Zelenak was on the brief, for intervenors.

Before KRAMER and FISHER, Associate Judges, and NEWMAN, Senior Judge.

KRAMER, Associate Judge:

Petitioner is appealing from a decision and order of the Compensation Review Board (the Board) affirming a compensation order by an Administrative Law Judge denying petitioner's claim for workers' compensation benefits under the District of Columbia's Workers' Compensation Act, D.C.Code §§ 32-1501-1545 (2001) (the WCA). Petitioner contends that the Board's chosen "manifestation rule" for determining when cumulative traumatic injuries are compensable under the WCA conflicts with the Act's presumption of compensability and that the Board's decision should therefore be reversed and his claim granted. We affirm.

I

The relevant facts of this case are essentially undisputed. Petitioner, a Maryland resident throughout the time period pertinent to this case, began working as a computer help-desk representative for various companies in the late 1980s. This work involved taking telephone calls from those experiencing problems with computer hardware or software, and for each call, recording its nature, using on-and off-line resources and manuals to troubleshoot problems, guiding the caller through a solution, and typing in a summary of the call upon completion. These duties required considerable, although not continuous, typing.

From January 2000 to November 2001, petitioner worked as a help desk assistant for Federal Data Corporation (FDC), a Maryland Corporation headquartered in Maryland. FDC had no office in the District of Columbia. Its help desk employees, however, often worked off-site at the offices of the company's clients. Thus, during the approximately twenty-two months petitioner was employed by FDC, he worked approximately three and one-half months in the District, three to four weeks in Pennsylvania, and the remainder of his tenure in Maryland. His first assignment in the District was at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building, where he worked from January to April of 2000; this comprised the entirety of his work in the District on behalf of FDC.

Petitioner testified that during his assignment at the IRS building, he first began to experience numbness and tingling in his hands, symptoms he initially attributed to poor circulation. He did not report these symptoms to anyone at FDC or seek any accommodation while he was in the company's employ, however, because he did not consider the symptoms serious at the time.

Petitioner first consulted a doctor about the symptoms in his hands and wrists on January 9, 2001, approximately eight months after he last worked for FDC in the District, when he mentioned them to a primary care physician during a visit prompted by sinus problems. According to the examining physician's notes, the doctor attributed the pain to "possibl[e] carpal tunnel," prescribed Vioxx, and advised the petitioner on the use of a wrist brace.

On November 9, 2001, petitioner's employment with FDC ended when he was laid off at the conclusion of the contract on which he was working. Petitioner was not employed again until approximately June 2002, when he started a janitorial business. The work required, according to a subsequent medical report, "strenuous use of the hands, to include the use of mops, brooms, pressure washers and buffers." In the meantime, the symptoms in petitioner's hands and wrists had intensified. Thus, on August 14, 2002, petitioner consulted an orthopedic surgeon and was diagnosed with bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. Subsequent nerve conduction studies and electromyography confirmed that petitioner's carpal tunnel syndrome was "severe" in his right hand and "moderate" in his left.

On October 28, 2002, petitioner filed a claim seeking past and prospective medical expenses with the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services (DOES), claiming injury from repetitive data entry and citing the date of injury as January 9, 2001. He then amended this filing on December 18, 2002, changing the date of injury to December 8, 1999. A formal hearing was held before Administrative Law Judge Anand K. Verma, who denied petitioner's claim on the basis that the District of Columbia lacked jurisdiction over the matter. Petitioner appealed this decision to the Board, which, in its decision and order, essentially adopted the factual and legal findings of Judge Verma in their entirety. This appealed followed.

II

Although several issues were raised in petitioner's appeal to the Board, the agency treated the jurisdictional question as dispositive, and that holding is the basis of petitioner's appeal. The essence of petitioner's argument is that the WCA contains a statutory presumption of compensability and that this presumption should underlie determinations of jurisdiction, as well as causation. While petitioner concedes that some version of the manifestation rule should govern the determination of when, and therefore where, a cumulative traumatic injury such as carpal tunnel syndrome "occurs" for statutory purposes, see D.C.Code § 32-1503 (2001), he argues that the statutory presumption of compensability requires DOES to apply whatever version of the rule "encourages coverage for injured workers." As in matters of causation, "[t]he burden then shifts to the employer to rebut the presumption."

The resolution of petitioner's claim requires an explication of this court's limited oversight of the administrative process, analysis of the relevant portions of the WCA, and an understanding of the difficulties cumulative traumatic injury presents in the administration of the District's workers' compensation laws.

A. Judicial Review of Agency Decisions

We begin by examining this court's standard of review of agency decisions such as this. The process of review of an agency decision by this court was succinctly set out in Zhang v. District of Columbia Dep't of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs:

Our review of administrative orders is two-fold. First, we review the factual findings of the agency to determine if there is substantial evidence to support them. If, after examining the record as a whole, we conclude that the agency's findings are supported by substantial evidence, we must accept those findings, even if the record could support a contrary finding.

Next, we conduct a de novo review of the agency's legal conclusions. We generally accord great deference to the agency's interpretations of its own regulations, so long as that interpretation is reasonable and consistent with the statutory language, and we leave an agency's decision undisturbed if it flows rationally from findings of fact that are supported by substantial evidence in the record.

834 A.2d 97, 101 (D.C.2003) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Substantial evidence, in this context, is "such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion." Gross v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 826 A.2d 393, 395 (D.C.2003) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, while this court retains an important role in ensuring the ultimate legal integrity of DOES decisions, it is not within our purview to micro-manage the myriad policy, operational, and fact-finding functions undertaken by this body. See Orius Telecomm., Inc. v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 857 A.2d 1061, 1065 (D.C.2004) ("Our review of the director's decision in workers' compensation cases is generally restrained.").

B. The WCA's Two-Tiered Jurisdictional Scheme

The Board's jurisdictional decision that led to the denial of benefits for petitioner in this case rested on its finding that petitioner's injury occurred outside of the District of Columbia because on the date the injury manifested itself, his employment was not in the District. This finding rests on the WCA's current two-tiered jurisdictional, or "coverage," scheme. Formerly, employment-related injuries were compensable under the WCA only if the claimant's employment was "`principally localized in the District.'" King v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 742 A.2d 460, 466 (D.C.1999) (quoting D.C.Code § 36-303). This meant that in some cases, a worker injured on the job in the District would not be covered by the District's workers' compensation laws. Id.

In 1991, the Council amended the WCA to expand coverage for injuries occurring within the District's borders. Id. These amendments established the two-tiered jurisdictional scheme that endures to the present day. See D.C.Code § 32-1503(a) (2001). Under the amended Act, the threshold jurisdictional question focuses on the location where the injury occurred, rather than on the location of the employer's principal place of business. King, supra, 742 A.2d at 466 (citing COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, REPORT ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WORKERS' COMPENSATION EQUITY AMENDMENT ACT OF 1990, at 14-15 (1990)). If the employee was working in the District "at the time of the injury," the Act applies. See § 32-1503(a)(1); see also King, supra, 742 A.2d at 466. For employment-related injuries occurring outside the District, however, § 32-1503(a)(2) retains the rule that such injuries are compensable under the District's law only "if, at the time of the injury . ....