Opinion ID: 1998977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Schedule Awards

Text: Petitioners argue that claimant was not entitled to schedule awards for the impairments to her legs because she injured her back, not her legs, and the back itself is not listed under the schedule provisions. Acknowledging that there are precedents upholding schedule awards of this nature, they ask us to disapprove a seminal decision by the Director of the Department of Employment Services which held that a claimant may be entitled to a schedule award when an injury to a non-scheduled part of the body affects a scheduled body part. Kovac v. Avis Leasing Corp., H & AS No. 84-177 (Director's Decision, July 17, 1986) (approving a schedule award for permanent partial disability in worker's right leg, although he had injured his back, not his leg, at work). In Kovac the Director decided that it is not the situs of the injury which determines whether a schedule award is payable; it is the situs of the disability resulting from the injury which is controlling. Kovac, at 6. [2] We defer to an agency's interpretation of a statute it administers unless the interpretation is unreasonable or in contravention of the language or legislative history of the statute.... Watergate East Comm. Against Hotel Conversion v. District of Columbia Zoning Comm'n, 953 A.2d 1036, 1043 (D.C.2008) (quotations and citations omitted). [W]e 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. Howard University Hosp. v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs. (Tommie Ambrose), 952 A.2d 168, 173-74 (D.C.2008) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Petitioners' argument must fail because we have previously considered the Kovac decision and conclude[d] that it is a reasonable interpretation [of the Workers' Compensation Act] and certainly not contrary to law. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs. (Chang), 683 A.2d 470, 475 (D.C.1996). One panel of this court may not overrule another, M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310, 312 (D.C.1971), and the Director obviously has not abandoned Kovac. The Kovac decision is no less reasonable today than it was when we decided Chang.