Opinion ID: 2168476
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alleged Exclusivity of the Workers' Compensation Act

Text: Appellant challenges the trial court's ruling that the Workers' Compensation Act (WCA) is her exclusive remedy against the Credit Union for her claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. In the following discussion we conclude: 1. Unless a claimant's injuries clearly are not compensable under the WCA i.e., when there is a substantial question whether the WCA appliesthe administrative agency charged with administering workers compensation claims, the Department of Employment Services (DOES), not the Superior Court, has primary jurisdiction over employment-related claims by private employees who allege disabilities attributable to intentional infliction of emotional distress. 2. The fact that appellant's common law tort claim for emotional distress is premised on the same events that underlie her Human Rights Act claim for sexual harassment profoundly affects the analysis. As a result, her alleged disability clearly falls outside the WCA definition of disabling injuries as a matter of law, and appellant is thus free to file suit for emotional distress in Superior Court rather than submitting that claim to DOES. 3. The analysis is reinforced by considerations of judicial economy that disfavor claim splitting. In particular, dividing jurisdiction over two claims based on the same events between an administrative agency and the trial court would create problems of issue preclusion, inconvenience, and unnecessary expense. 4. Granting DOES primary jurisdiction over appellant's emotional distress claim also would have a chilling impact on enforcement of the Human Rights Act policy prohibiting sexual harassment. Involvement of DOES not only would create claim-splitting problems but also would delegate jurisdiction to an administrative agency not used to dealing with sexual harassment issues, and would apply a statute that severely caps financial recovery in an area where the legislature has indicated a strong preference for compensatory and punitive damages.
The WCA provides a comprehensive scheme for compensating private sector employees for their work-related injuries. It makes the employer liable without fault if the employee's occupational injury or death falls within the scope of the Act, see D.C.Code § 36-303; Grillo v. National Bank of Washington, 540 A.2d 743, 748 (D.C.1988), but as a quid pro quo for such automatic liability the Act provides the employee's exclusive remedyan administrative remedyagainst the employer for injuries within its reach. See id. § 36-304(a); Grillo, 540 A.2d at 748. [14] The issue, therefore, is whether appellant's emotional distress claim is compensable under the WCA and thus is not eligible for a lawsuit in court. We have held that, when there is a substantial question whether the WCA applies, the administrative agency charged with implementing the statute, given its special expertise, has primary jurisdiction to make the initial determination concerning coverage before the courts can exercise jurisdiction. Harrington v. Moss, 407 A.2d 658, 661 (D.C.1979). We elaborated that, when an injury occurs during the performance of an employee's duties, a substantial question will exist, and thus the agency will have primary jurisdiction, unless the injuries were clearly not compensable under the statute. Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the trial court's jurisdiction over appellant's common law emotional distress claim depends on whether we can say, as a matter of law, that her claim is clearly outside WCA coverage. As important background for this inquiry we note, first, that no one contends that the WCA can preempt the trial court's jurisdiction over a statutory claim of on-the-job sex discrimination (including sexual harassment) under the D.C. Human Rights Actthe kind of claim the jury rejected in this case. See D.C.Code § 1-2556 (private cause of action under Human Rights Act); Howard Univ. v. Best, 484 A.2d 958, 982 (D.C.1984) (holding university faculty member's lawsuit based on actions by college Dean established prima facie case of sexual harassment under Human Rights Act); cf. King v. Kidd, 640 A.2d 656, 664 (D.C.1993) (holding Superior Court had jurisdiction to hear public employee's statutory sexual harassment claim and interrelated or `pendent' tort claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress based on sexual harassment). Appellee NCUA, therefore, implicitly accepts the trial court's jurisdiction over appellant's sexual harassment lawsuit under the Human Rights Act and the resulting jury verdict for the Credit Union. NCUA then argues, however, that because this case no longer contains a statutory sexual harassment claim, the WCAthe only statute now in the picturepreempts a lawsuit for a common law tort, intentional infliction of emotional distress, caused on the job by a fellow employee. According to NCUA, appellant was obliged to take her claim to DOES, the agency charged with administering workers' compensation claims. We agree that, in cases not premised on allegations of sexual harassment, the decisional law holds that the trial court ordinarily will not have jurisdiction over an emotional distress claim based on the acts of a supervisor or co-worker since there typically will be a substantial question whether the WCA applies. See Grillo, 540 A.2d at 748-50; Harrington, 407 A.2d at 661; cf. District of Columbia v. Thompson, 570 A.2d 277, 285-87 (D.C.1990) ( Thompson I ), aff'd in part and vacated in part, 593 A.2d 621, 635-36 (D.C. 1991) ( Thompson II ), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 942, 112 S.Ct. 380, 116 L.Ed.2d 331 (1991) (applying public employment law conceptually close to the WCA in case of alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress). Case law governing the public sector is informative here. In Part II of Thompson I we held that, under the disability provisions of the Comprehensive Merit Personnel Act (CMPA), D.C.Code §§ 1-624.2 to -624.46 (1992 Repl.), see supra note 14, the employee initially must submit a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, allegedly caused by her supervisor, to DOES, the agency charged with administering CMPA's disability provisions, when there is a substantial question whether the claim fall[s] within CMPA. Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 285. [15] Essentially, therefore, in a case of alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress on a public employment job, we incorporated Grillo's and Harrington's WCA analysis into CMPAbut only after distinguishing earlier case law. This court previously had held in Newman v. District of Columbia, 518 A.2d 698, 705-06 (D.C.1986), another CMPA case alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress, that allegations of `humiliation,' `embarrassment,' `public ridicule,' and `personal indignity' did not amount to an `injury' within CMPA and that, because the appellant in Newman did not claim he was disabled by his injuries, CMPA was inapplicable. Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 286. [16] In Thompson I, however, the employee not only had alleged humiliation and mental suffering in the complaint but also had effectively amended the complaint in her pretrial statement to allege permanent and serious psychological injuries. 570 A.2d at 286. According to the court, this latter allegation suggested a disability, which is definedin the words of the analogous WCAas `physical or mental incapacity because of injury which results in the loss of wages.' Id. (quoting D.C.Code § 36-301(8) (1988)). We therefore recognized, for CMPA's exclusivity purposes, a distinction (drawn from Newman and traceable to Mason, see supra note 16) between mental suffering that results in disability and mental suffering that does not. We concluded the former, but not the latter, falls within CMPA: While the WCA and accompanying case law are not directly applicable, and while Thompson did not specifically allege that she was `disabled' because of her injuries, the conceptual closeness of WCA to [the disability provisions of] CMPA, coupled with the expansion of Thompson's claim [in her pretrial statement], as evidenced by the proffered testimony of her experts, effectively turned the claim of mental injuries into one of mental disability at least arguably within the scope of CMPA. Id. Consequently, we held in Thompson I, after equating disability under CMPA with disability under the WCA, that DOES had primary jurisdiction because there was a substantial question whether Thompson had, or had not, suffered a mental disability id., from her emotional distress. In the present, private employee case, appellant alleges disabling injuries from the emotional distress she has suffered from West's actions. In Thompson I we noted this court has held that injuries caused intentionally by strangers or by co-workers are compensable and thus require employees to submit claims for workers' compensation benefits before filing suit. Id. at 287 (citing Grillo and Harrington ). Accordingly, unless there is some special reason why the Harrington-Grillo line of WCA casesbut-tressed by Thompson I reasoning as applied to emotional distress claimsdoes not resolve the issue, the substantial question whether appellant's emotional distress has resulted in disability compensable under the WCA means that DOES (the agency administering workers compensation), not the Superior Court, has primary jurisdiction.
But there is a special reason why Harrington and Grillo do not necessarily control. The fact that appellant's emotional distress claim is based on the same events that generated her sexual harassment claim under the Human Rights Act substantially affects the analysis. In resolving the jurisdictional issues, we rely on allegations and characterizations in the complaint, not on the trial record. [17] The Thompson-Newman-Mason line of CMPA cases incorporated the WCA definition of disability to draw the line between emotional distress claims that are, and those that are not, preempted by CMPA (sexual harassment was not an issue). We concluded that disabling injuries from emotional distress are cognizable in the first instance by DOES, not by the trial court. See Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 286. But this conclusion, of course, had to mean that DOES had jurisdiction over injuries that were disabling as defined under CMPA/WCA. Thompson I could not have meant, and thus did not mean, that DOES had primary jurisdiction over injuries which perhaps were disabling in fact but yet were outside the legal definition of disability under the WCA. We believe it is clear that, when emotional distress allegedly attributable to sexual harassment (in contrast with some other cause) results in disabling injuries in fact, the language of the WCA itself easily demonstrates that these are not statutory injuries, and thus are not compensable disabilities, under the WCA. Accordingly, as elaborated below, the statutory language does not present a substantial question whether disabling injuries from emotional distress caused by sexual harassment are covered by the WCA; such injuries  clearly are not compensable under the statute. Harrington, 407 A.2d at 661. [18] An injury compensable under the WCA is defined as accidental injury or death arising out of and in the course of employment, and such occupational disease or infection as arises naturally out of such employment or as naturally or unavoidably results from such accidental injury, and includes an injury caused by the wilful act of third persons directed against an employee because of his [or her] employment. D.C.Code § 36-301(12) (emphasis added). While conceding that her emotional distress from sexual harassment and related retaliation occurred in the course of her employment, appellant argues that this injury was not accidental, did not aris[e] out of her employment, and was not inflicted on her by a third person because of her employment. [19] In Fazio v. Cardillo, 71 App.D.C. 264, 109 F.2d 835 (1940), the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit interpreted the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. §§ 901 et seq. (1984)which is the WCA's statutory predecessorand concluded: an injury arises out of the employment when it occurs [1] in the course of the employment and [2] as the result of a risk involved in or incidental to the employment or to the conditions under which it is required to be performed.... [T]he fact that the injury is contemporaneous or coincident with employment is not alone a sufficient basis for an award. Id. at 265, 109 F.2d at 836 (emphasis added). [20] We conclude as a matter of law that sexual harassment is not a risk involved in or incidental to employment. We do so not merely because a statutethe Human Rights Actforbids such harassment during day-to-day workplace interaction but, more fundamentally, because sexual harassment is altogether unrelated to any work task. Sexual harassment is facilitated on the job only through the happenstance of two persons' physical proximity at the same place of employment; it has nothing whatsoever to do with, and cannot be justified by reference to, any task an employee is called upon to perform, even if the persons involved work together and have a supervisor-supervisee relationship. [21] We therefore agree with appellant that her injuries resulting from emotional distress attributable to sexual harassment were not statutory injuries arising out of her employment. The analysis is not complete, however, because the WCA definition of accidental injury also encompasses all injuries caused by the wilful act of third persons directed against an employee because of his [or her] employment. D.C.Code § 36-101(12). Although the incidents underlying appellant's emotional distress claim may have been wilful acts by West (a third person[ ]), as a matter of law they were not directed against appellant because of her employment since sexual harassment, as already indicated, is not within the risk attributable to an employment relationship as such. [22] In sum, appellant's claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, based on her allegations of sexual harassment, does not reflect an injury compensable under the WCA; it did not arise out of her employment and was not inflicted on her by a third person because of her employment. D.C.Code § 36-301(12). [23] We subscribe completely to the words of the Supreme Court of Florida: Our clear obligation is to construe both the workers' compensation statute and the enactments dealing with sexual harassment so that the policies of both are preserved to the greatest extent possible.       [W]orkers' Compensation is directed essentially at compensating a worker for lost resources and earnings. This is a vastly different concern than is addressed by the sexual harassment laws. While work place injuries rob a person of resources, sexual harassment robs the person of dignity and self esteem.... To the extent these injuries are separable, we believe that they should be, and can be, enforced separately.       Similarly, to the extent that the claim alleges ... intentional infliction of emotional distress arising from sexual harassment... the exclusivity rule will also not bar [it]. This is so because th[is] cause[] of action address[es] the very essence of the policies against sexual harassmentan injury to intangible personal rights. Byrd, 552 So.2d at 1102-04 (emphasis added).
There is case law in this jurisdiction, drawn from public employment litigation, that reinforces the foregoing analysis. In King v. Kidd , we held that a public employee's common law tort claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which she had joined with a statutory claim for sexual harassment, could go forward in Superior Court against the hierarchy of supervisors who allegedly had harassed her, without preemption by an administrative remedy under CMPA. Specifically, we held that CMPA's personnel provisions did not preempt plaintiff's tort claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress based on acts of sexual harassment and subsequent retaliation. Id., 640 A.2d at 664. We sustained the court's jurisdiction to hear both [plaintiff's] sexual harassment claim and her interrelated or `pendent' tort claim, id. (citation and footnote omitted), because plaintiff's tort claim was fundamentally linked to her sexual harassment claim, i.e., it had an inherent `nexus' to that claim. Id. [24] We distinguished the Thompson litigation, where we had concluded that CMPA preempted Thompson's tort claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress because the [previously described] actions of her supervisor constituted personnel evaluation decisions and disciplinary actions whichunlike sexual harassmentfit squarely within the text and purpose of the CMPA's review and grievance procedures. Id. at 663 (citing Thompson II, 593 A.2d at 635). [25] King refining Thompson I and II therefore stands for the proposition (among other things) that not all emotional distress claims by public employees attributable to actions by a supervisor or a co-worker are subject to the primary jurisdiction of DOES to decide whether an administrative remedy under CMPA applies. We reached our conclusion in King, akin to our analysis of the WCA in Part III.B., by noting that sexual harassment is not an instance of typical `employee-employer conflicts,' id. at 677i.e., not an inherent part of the employment situation, id. at 678that CMPA's personnel grievance machinery is authorized and designed to accommodate. The question for us, however, is how King, a CMPA case, bears on the WCA. [26] We perceive no distinction between public and private employment that could warrant a different result from King under the WCA, unless there are differences between CMPA and the WCA that would so requirethe issue to which we now turn. Because King answered the exclusivity question for CMPA's personnel provisions, NCUA argues that King 's rationale is inapplicable to CMPA's disability provisions and that it follows, a fortiori, that King does not affect the WCA. We recognized in Thompson II that CMPA's personnel provisions and its disability provisions have altogether different subject matter and purposes and, for that reason, may be treated as separate statutes. Id., 593 A.2d at 630. Thus, it is true that we cannot say a King analysis applicable to CMPA personnel provisions applies automatically to CMPA'sor to WCA'sdisability provisions. On the other hand, as we have said, unless there is a meaningful statutory distinction between CMPA's disability and personnel provisions when sexual harassment is at the heart of a claim for emotional distress, King should apply equally to both; otherwise, different treatments under those respective provisions would make no sense. We see nothing in the WCA itself that would foreclose applying King's result under that statute. [27] In the first place, if appellant's emotional distress had not led to disability, then of course there would be no WCA barrier to a lawsuit. See Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 286; Newman, 518 A.2d at 705-06. It therefore would make sense to limit disability claims for emotional distress based on sexual harassment to the WCA remedy only if DOES has some special expertise in evaluating this particular kind of disability claim; otherwise, the irony would be palpable in limiting the most serious emotional distress claims (i.e., all disability claims) to WCA coverage while permitting all lesser emotional distress claimseligible even for punitive damagesto go to court. The fact is, of course, that DOES expertise in reviewing workers compensation claims typically pertains to evaluating the usual impairments that lead to total or partial, permanent or temporary, physical disabilities based on medical testimony; for example, back pain, loss of an arm, a collapsing knee. See D.C.Code § 36-308. To be sure, disabilities attributable to emotional causes theoretically come within DOES's purview, see Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 285-87, but this is the rare case from the usual work environment. When it comes to the consequences of emotional distress from sexual harassment, the Office of Human Rightsthe agency charged with administrative responsibilities under the Human Rights Act, see D.C.Code § 1-2541is arguably the greater expert. In any event, the point is, no justification is discernible for limiting disability claims for emotional distress to DOES processing when other like claims based on sexual harassment can proceed directly to court, and when DOES cannot offer special expertise making it a more suitable forum. Furthermore, King recognizes that claim splitting between DOES and the Superior Court would create serious problems of judicial economyinconvenience, added expense, and concerns about issue preclusionunless an essentially pendent common law emotional distress claim is allowed to go forward in court with the corresponding statutory sexual harassment claim. See supra note 24. In sum, King reinforces the statutory analysis that appellant's emotional distress claim is clearly outside WCA coverage.
There is another significant policy consideration here. Limitation of claims for emotional distress from sexual harassment to an administrative remedy under the WCA would frustrate implementation of the Human Rights Act. [28] That Act proscribes sex discriminationincluding sexual harassment [29] in the workplace. According to legislative history, enactment of the Human Rights Act underscored the Council's intent that the elimination of discrimination within the District of Columbia should have the highest priority.' REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SERVICES AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS, July 5, 1977, at 3 (quoted in Best, 484 A.2d at 978) (Council Report). The statute provides an administrative remedy through the Office of Human Rights that can result in payment of compensatory damages, reasonable attorney fees, and hearing costs, see D.C.Code § 1-2553(a)(1). It also provides a private cause of action for any individual claiming to be aggrieved by an unlawful discriminatory practice. Best, 484 A.2d at 978 (citing D.C.Code § 1-2556) (footnote omitted). Accordingly, a plaintiff may file suit in Superior Court seeking substantial damagesincluding punitive damages [30] for sexual harassment in violation of the Act, without having to exhaust administrative remedies available through the Office of Human Rights. See Best, 484 A.2d at 978 n. 20 (citing Williams v. District of Columbia, 467 A.2d 140, 142 (D.C. 1983)). We believe that confinement of emotional distress complaints to the WCA remedy, when premised on alleged disability from sexual harassment, would frustrate Human Rights Act policy not only by creating problems of judicial economyespecially concerns about issue preclusionbut also by forcing a litigant who seeks relief under the emotional distress label to settle for a remedy out of keeping with the kind of injury involved. Under the WCA there is a severe cap on allowable recovery. At best, [c]ompensation for disability or death shall not exceed the average weekly wages of insured employees in the District of Columbia [computed annually] or $396.78, whatever is greater, D.C.Code § 36-305(b); see id. § 36-305(d). Generally, the WCA entitles a partially or totally disabled employee to a maximum recovery of 662/3% of that employee's average weekly wage for a prescribed period. See id. § 36-308. Thus, WCA recovery is likely to be significantly less than tort recovery for damages attributable to disabling emotional distress based on sexual harassment. As the leading treatise writer has explained: A compensation system, unlike a tort recovery, does not pretend to restore to the claimant what he [or she] has lost; it gives him [or her] a sum which, added to his [or her] remaining earning ability, if any, will presumably enable him [or her] to exist without being a burden to others.       Even among those who contend that the scale of benefits is generally too low, there are few if any who would contend that anything resembling tort principles of amount of recovery should be imported into compensation law. It was never intended that compensation payments should equal actual loss, if for no other reason than that such a scale would encourage malingering. A. LARSON, THE LAW OF WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION, §§ 2.50, 2.59 (1994 Supp). One may try to argue that as long as an employee has a right to go directly to court alleging sexual harassment in violation of the Human Rights Act, it does not matter that a related emotional distress claim is confined to DOES processing and capped by WCA compensation limits. But of course it does matter. The chill on recovery of just compensation for acts of sexual harassment and related emotional distress is evident from the reasons elaborated above, since a complainant could not bring in the same forum all her claims based on the same facts rooted in sexual harassment.
We are satisfied that our analysis in Part III.B., based on statutory language and persuasive case law, see supra notes 21 and 22, demonstrates that there is no substantial question of WCA coverage here. We have gone beyond that analysis in Parts III.C. and III.D. to show that King buttresses our conclusion, and that considerations of judicial economy, agency expertise, and fair right of recovery all indicate that the WCA has no proper role in processing claims, however labeled, that essentially are based on sexual harassment. We hold that appellant properly filed in court her common law claim alleging disability from emotional distress based on the same facts as those underlying her statutory claim for sexual harassment. She was not limited to a WCA remedy from DOES on her emotional distress claim.