Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic and

Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go to press.

D ISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 11

- AA

- 1396
D ISTRICT OF C OLUMBIA P UBLIC S CHOOLS , P ETITIONER ,
V
. D ISTRICT OF C OLUMBIA D EPARTMENT OF E MPLOYMENT S ERVICES , R ESPONDENT ,
AND G LORIA M ITCHELL , I NTERVENOR
. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Compensation Review Board of the District of Columbia Department of Employment Services

( CRB

- 007

- 11 ) ( Argued March 19, 2014 Decided August 27, 2015) Mary L. Wilson , Senior Assistant Attorney General , with whom Irvin B. Nathan , Attorney G eneral for the District of Columbia at the time the brief was filed , Todd S. Kim , Solicitor General, Loren L. AliKhan , Deputy Solicitor General, and Donna M. Murasky , Deputy Solicitor General, were on the brief, for petitioner. Ronald Wick , with whom Jo nathan M. Grossman and Chad E. Kurtz , were on the brief, for intervenor. Tonya A. Sapp filed a statement in lieu of brief for respondent. Before W ASHINGTON , Chief Judge , B ECKWITH , Associate Judge , and R EID , Senior Judge

.2

W ASHINGTON , Chief Judge : T his appeal arises out of a workers’ compensation claim filed by in tervenor, Gloria Mitchell (“Ms. Mitchell”), against her former employer, District of Columbia Public Schools (“DCPS”). On April 9, 2008, while working for DCPS as a special education teache r, Ms. Mitchell slipped on baby oil that a student had spilled on the floor. Ms. Mitchell was unable to work for a period of time as a result of her injuries and received temporary total disability (“TTD”) benefits, including wages and medical services, f or over two years. In the summer of 2010, two independent medical evaluations determined that Ms. Mitchell had reached maximum medical improvement, could return to work, and needed no additional treatment. DCPS notified her that it would be terminating h er benefits, and Ms. Mitchell appealed to the Department of Employment Services (“DOES”). After a hearing, the Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) determined that Ms. Mitchell was still temporarily totally disabled and ordered reinstatement of her benefits “ to the present and continuing, causally related medicals, and interest.” DCPS appealed to the DOES Compensation Review Board (“CRB”) contesting only the award of interest, and the CRB
affirmed

. DCPS now appeals only the i nterest award to this court.

T he question before the court is whether , if the District terminates a claimant’s disability compensation benefits and the claimant subsequently wins3

reinstatement of the terminated benefits on appeal, DOES is permitted to award interest on accrued benefit s that were not paid to the employee pending the appeal. In deciding this question, we must determine whether the CRB’s construction of the Compensation Merit Personnel Act (“CMPA”), D.C. Code § 1

- 623.01 et seq. (2012 Repl. ) , is reasonable and consistent with the statute’s language and purpose. We hold that the CRB’s interpretation of the CMPA as authorizing interest to be paid on worker s ’ compensation benefits is not inconsistent with the statute, or our case law, and we therefore affirm.

I. Fa cts

The undisputed facts are as follows. On April 9, 2008 , Ms. Mitchell was working as a special education teacher for DCPS when she slipped and fell on a hallway floor , sustaining injuries to her head and shoulders. DCPS began paying
Ms. Mitchell tempo rary total disability benefits from the date of her injury . On July 20, 2010, the Office of Risk Management (“ORM”), which administers the District’s disability benefits program for p ublic

- sector employees, 7 DCMR § 3100.1, sent Ms. Mitchell a notice indi cating that the District intended to terminate her benefits on August 20, 2010

. DCPS made the decision to terminate the benefits after two independent medical evaluations concluded that Ms. Mitchell4

had attained maximum medical improvement, could return t o work without restriction, and did not require any further treatment. The notice also explained
that she could either ask for reconsideration of that decision or appeal to DOES

. Ms. Mitchell chose to appeal to DOES, which ultimately credited her treatin g physician’s opinion that she remained temporarily totally disabled as a consequence of the injuries to her head , and thus ordered reinstatement of her benefits. In so doing, the ALJ awarded Ms. Mitchell TTD benefits “to the present and continuing, ca u s a lly related medicals, and interest.” 1 DCPS appealed only the portion of the award ordering it to pay interest , and the CRB affirmed. The District now seeks this court’s review of the CRB’s decision affirming the interest award

. 2

II. Standard of Review

O n appeal, this court ’s review of an administrative agency decision is “limited , ” and the court “must affirm an agency decision unless it is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” Asylum Co. & Ins. Design er s v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs. , 10

1 The ALJ’s ruling provided that Ms. Mitchell was entitled to payment of benefits from August 20, 2010, the date that ORM terminated her benefits.

2 The District does not challenge the CRB’s conclusion that Ms. Mitchell (continued . . .)5

A.3d 619, 624 (D.C. 2010); see also Muhammad v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs. , 34 A.3d 488, 491 (D.C. 2012 ). We review questions of law de novo , and the judiciary is the final authority on i s sues of statutory construction. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth. v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t
Servs. , 683 A.2d 470, 472 (D.C. 1996). However , “we defer to an agency’s interpretation of the statute and regulations it is charged by the legis lature to administer, unless its interpretation is unreasonable or is inconsistent with the statutory language or purpose .” District of Columbia Office of Human Rights v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Corr

. , 40 A.3d 917, 923 (D.C. 2012) (citations
omitted ) [hereinafter “ OHR v. DOC ”] . We will defer to an agency’s interpretation “so long as it is not plainly wrong or inconsistent with the legislature’s intent.” Howard Univ. Hosp. v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp ’ t Servs. , 952 A.2d 168, 173 (D.C. 2008) (citation omitted). Further, this court “must sustain the agency’s interpretation even if a petitioner advances another reasonable interpretation of the statute or if we might have been persuaded by the alternate interpretation had we been construing the statute in the first instance.” Id.

Here, the CRB’s determination that the CMPA authorizes an ALJ to award

(. . . continued) was still disabled and entitled to TTD benefits.6

interest to a successfu l claimant is a question of law which we review de novo

. However, b ecause DOES is an administrative agency that we have re cognized as having “expertise . . . and responsibility for administering” the CMPA, we will affirm its interpretation unless it is unreasonable or inconsistent with the statutory language or purpose. Asylum Co. , 10 A.3d at 625 (citation omitted).

III. Ana lysis

The CMPA , D.C. Code § 1

- 623.01 et seq. , establishes a compensation program for employees in the District of Columbia who are disabled as a result of injuries suffered in the performance of their work duties. The District provides compensation for a n individual who is temporarily totally disabled as a result of an

on - the

- job injury in the amount of 66 2/3 % of her pay for the period that s he is disabled , 3 and additionally provides the services of a physician to treat the injury

. 4
The CMPA is silent a s to the District’s obligation to pay interest on an award of workers’ compensation.

3 D.C. Code § 1

- 623.0 5.

4 D.C. Code § 1

- 623.03.7

In this case, after finding that Ms. Mitchell continued to be temporarily totally disabled from the period of August 20, 2010 , to the present, the ALJ awarded her TTD b enefits, including medical expenses plus interest on the award , and t he CRB affirmed

. In its 2

- 1 decision , the CRB correctly recognized that it had never before addressed whether an employer can be ordered to pay inte rest on a workers’ compensation award pursuant to the CMPA. However, the CRB identified a series of prior cases in which the court upheld the agency’s authority to
award interest on accrued workers’ compensation disability benefits pursuant to the private workers’ compensation statute , 5 even though that statute , like the CMPA, is silent concerning interest awards

. Thus, the CRB reasoned that because the parallel public and private workers’ compensation statutes are substantially
similar and serve the same purpose , and because it could “di scer n nothing within the public

- sector Act that dictate[d] following any other course than that endorsed

u nder the private

- sector statute, ” the authority to assess interest on accrued benefits unde r the public

- sector statute was similarly permissible

.

Appe llant’s primary argument is that the District of Columbia enjoys sovereign immunity from an award of interest unless it has waived immunity by

5 District of Columbia Workers’ Compensation Act of 1979, D.C. Code § 32

- 1051 et seq. (2012 Repl.) [hereinafter “WCA”].8

explicitly authorizing payment of interest. Appellant contends that because the CMPA’s provisions are silent con cerning interest, interest award s are not authorized and are prohibited by the Distr ict’s sovereign immunity, citing Library of Congress v. Shaw , 478 U.S. 310 (1986) , and District of Columbia v. Brown , 739 A.2d 832 (D.C. 1999). Shaw acknowledged the “no

- i nterest” rule, holding that the United States is immune from an interest award in the absence of an express statutory w aiver of immunity by Congress. See 478 U.S. at 314

- 15. In Brown , the court denied interest on a back pay award under the pre

- 1987 Feder al Back Pay Act, a statute which contained no authority for an award of interest. 739 A.2d at
837

- 40. However, t he cases upon which appellant relies make it clear that in order for the federal government to waive its liability for interest there must be an explicit waiver with respect to the government’s immunity from int erest payments in the statute. T he Supreme Court subsequently indicated that its ruling requiring an explicit statutory waiver before the government can be ordered to pay interest

on an award applies only when a successful plaintiff or claimant challenges the federal government’s immunity from inte rest payments, and that the ruling does not apply to states: “That rule, which is applicable to the immunity of the United States . . . , pro vides an ‘added gloss of strictness,’ only where the United States’ liability for interest is at issue.” Missouri v. Jenkins , 491 U.S. 274, 28 1 n.3 (1989) (quoting Shaw , 478 U.S. at 318); see also McDonough v. City of Quincy , 353 F.9

Supp

. 2d 179, 191 n.9 (D. Mass 2005) (observing that the Court in Jenkins declined to extend the “no

- interest” rule to state immunity ); Bailey v. District of Columbia , 839 F. Supp. 888, 893 ( D. D

. C. 1993) (“Unlike the federal government, the District of Columbia does not enjoy s overeign immunity from interest awards.”) ; Jones v. Washington Metro

. Area Transit Auth

. , 205 F.3d 428 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (citing Jenkins and upholding an interest award on back pay after concluding that “the no interest rule does not apply to state liabilit y ” ). By enacting the CMPA, the District of Columbia waived its immunity by consenting to suit by employees seeking to recover worker s’ compensation awards. Thus, because the District has opened itself up to liability for employee injury and disability cl aims , and because the federal “no

- interest” rule is not at play, we are not persuaded that the District is shielded from paying interest under the doctr ine of sovereign immunity and that an explicit waiver of immunity from paying interest is required to au thorize an interest award under the CMPA.

Appellee asserts that an agency in the District of Columbia is authorized to award interest even lacking a n express statutory provision permitting such an award, citing, inter alia , OHR v. DOC , 40 A.3d at 923

. In that case, a former employee sued the D.C. Department of Corrections for violations of the Distri ct of Columbia Human Rights Act (“DCHRA”), but the D.C. Office of Human Rights10

concluded that it lacked authority to award interest on the award because the controlling statute was silent concerning interest. The Superior Court reversed, and this court agreed, rejecting the proposition that if a statute does not explicitly award interest, such an award is prohibited. See id. at 928 ; see also Riggs Nat’l Bank v. District of Columbia , 581 A.2d 1229, 1253 (D.C. 1990) (“A statutory obligation may bear interest even though the statute makes no provision therefor.”); Burke v. Groover, Christie & Merritt , 26 A.3d 292, 306 (D.C. 2011) (“Significantly, the obligat ion to pay pre

- judgment interest arises under the common law and may be payable even in the absence of a statutory authorization to that effect.”). The court in OH R v. DOC reasoned that interest is “part and parcel” of an award and that its purpose is to “preserve the value of the damages awarded.” Id. The same reasoning has been applied in the CRB’s worker s ’ compensation rulings. In upholding the interest award in the present case, the CRB cited a series of cases 6 in which the agency authorized payment of accrued benefits

6 See Edward Hill, Jr. v. Greyhound Line, Inc. , Dir. Dkt. No. 96

- 39, H&AS No. 87

- 759(B), OWC No. 0115712 (January 31, 1997); Woodward v. Central Investig. Bureau , Dir. Dkt. No. 91

- 104 (January 28, 1992); Goyins v. Max Factor, Inc. , H&A S No. 83

- 234 (Decision of the Director, June 6, 1986). The CRB also cited to Bolden v. Embassy Dairy , H&AS No. 83

- 192, OWC N o. 001777 (February 15, 1984), which was a decision by a Hearing Examiner on which Hill and Woodward both relied. Due to the age of these cases, the adjudicative bodies involved are the Hearing Examiner (initial) and the Director of DOES (appeal level) ra ther than DOES and the CRB.11

under the District of Columbia Workers’ Compensation Act of 1979 (“WCA”) , the

“ private ” worker s ’ compensation statute. Noting that the disability benefit award provisions of the statutes parallel one another , 7 the Board he ld that ther e was not a discerni ble reason that an ALJ applying the CMPA should not similarly be authorized to award interest on accrued benefits under the CMPA

. The D istrict argues that the private

- s ector cases are not instructive because they do not impli cate sover eign immunity, but in light of our conclusion that sovereign immunity does not bar interest payments under the CMPA , we disagree. As a matter of statutory construction, t he CRB’s conclusion that the public and private statutes should be similarly construe d as permitting interest on accrued benefits, notwithstanding the lack of expli cit authority to do so, is not un reasonable or inconsistent with the purpose of the CMPA

. 8 See Luck v. District of Columbia ,

7 Both the “public” and “private” statutes provide compensation in the amount of 66 2/3% of an employee’s average pay during the period of total disability. Compare Comprehensive Merit Personnel Act , D.C. Code § 1

- 623.05, with District of Columbia Workers’ Compensation Act of 1979, D.C. Code § 32

- 1508 (2). Neither statute explicitly provides for interest awards on accrued benefits.

8 Other jurisdictions similarly award interest under their workers’ compensation statutes, des pite a lack of explicit statutory authorization. See, e.g. , Land & Marine Rental Co. v. Rawls , 686 P.2d 1187, 1191

- 92 (Alaska 1984) (stating that although the workers’ compensation act “does not expressly provide for interest[,] [i]n view of its purpose, the inference that such omission is equal to an exclusion cannot be made”); Tisdale v. Industrial Comm’n of Ariz. , 751 P.2d 527, 528

- 29 (Ariz. 1988) (stating that “there is no reason why the general interest (continued . . .)12

617 A.2d 509, 514 (D.C. 1992) (quoting United State s v. Freeman , 44 U.S. 556, 564

- 65 (1845) (“if divers statutes relate to the same thing, they ought all to be taken into consideration in construing any one of them

. . . . ”) )

.

Finally, appellant argues that “the equities” do not support an award of
inter est in the present case because terminat ing Ms. Mitchell’s benefits was “reasonable” and was not done “irresponsibly.” This argument misa pprehen d s the interest award as a form of penalty for either bad faith or negligent termination

. We do not consider t he District’s intent or level of care in deciding whether interest may be awarded under the statute. On the contrary, an interest award on accrued disability benefits , as with interest generally, merely recognizes the time

value of money, and in doing so affords the worker the full value of benefits due for her injuries under the statute. The District suggests that awarding interest would impermissibly provide benefits above and beyond the 66 2/3% of the worker’s salary designated as a worker’s “exclusive ” remedy in the statute. See

(. . . continued) statute in Arizona would not apply” to a claima nt’s workers’ compensation benefits not timely paid); Parker v. Brinson Constr. Co. , 78 So. 2d 873, 876 (Fla. 1955) (“During the period [workers’] compensation is withheld, the carrier or employer should pay for the use of the money which it is using and h as wrongfully withheld . . . [and] the beneficiary should be compensated for the same amount of money which at least theoretically, and most times actually, he is forced to hire to sustain himself.”).13

D.C. Code § 1

- 623.16 (c). However, we are persuaded that without an interest award on the unpaid benefits , Ms. Mitchell would effectively receive benefits in an

amount less than provided for in the statute given her lost oppo rtunity interest in the money during the period between termination of her benefits and the date she successfully appealed and the benefits were reinstated. See Bragdon v. Twenty

Five Twelve Assocs

. , 856 A.2d 1165, 1171 (D.C. 2004) (“ [W] here the plaintiff has lost the use of his money, a denial of pre

- judgment interest would deny full compensation to the [plaintiff]

. . . . ”); Nolen v. District of Columbia , 726 A.2d 182, 185 (D.C. 1999) (“Where there has been such a deprivation, pre

- judgment
interest is an element of complete compensation for the loss of use of such money from the time the claim accrues until judgment is entered, thereby achieving full compensation for the injury those da mages are intended to redress.” (internal quotati on marks and citation omitted) )

. Accordingly, awarding interest on accrued benefits is consistent with the purpose of the CMPA by fully and promptly compensating a n injured work er during the period of her disability to the amount set by the statute

. See Darden v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp ’ t Servs. 911 A.2d 410, 417 (D.C. 2006 ) (“[T]he purpose of the Workers’ Compensation Act is to advance the humanitarian goal to provide compensation to employees for work

related disability reasonably expeditiously

. . . . ”).14

In s um , having recognized DOES’s expertise in and responsibility for applying the CMPA , and having examined pertinent case law from this jurisdiction and elsewhere, we are satisfied that the CRB’s ruling that DOES is authorized to award interest on accrued wor ker’s compensation disability ben efits is neither “plainly wrong ” nor inconsistent with the purpose of the statute

. Howard Univ. Hosp. , 952 A.2d at 173.
Accordingly, the CRB’s order is Affirmed.