Opinion ID: 1949722
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Claim for Medical Expenses Arising Out of Petitioner's Accident While Returning Home from an Employer-Mandated Job Interview

Text: In rejecting Nixon's claim that she was entitled to medical benefits for expenses arising from her February 2001 vehicle accident, the ALJ reasoned that meeting one[']s [attendance at job interview] responsibilities under vocational rehabilitation so as to maintain one[']s disability payments does not constitute employment within the meaning of the Act. The ALJ also reasoned that even [i]f attending job interviews is seen as Claimant's job, the injury occurred away from the job site, meaning that under the so-called going and coming rule, Claimant must be viewed as any other worker who while traveling home is broadsided ... and is injured. The ... law in this jurisdiction does not recognize that injury as having been sustained in the course of employment.... The CRB upheld this ruling, reasoning that the injury did not occur while Nixon was about the [Employer's] business at a time or place where [Nixon] was expected to perform [] her work duties. The CRB also rejected Nixon's argument that travel was part of her work making her a traveling employee, reasoning that there was no evidence that traveling away from her worksite was part of her duties. As the ALJ and CRB recognized, the CMPA's provision for compensation for disability of an employee resulting from personal injury sustained while in the performance of his or her duty, D.C.Code § 1-623.02, has been construed as requiring that the injury arise both out of and in the course of employment. McCamey v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 947 A.2d 1191, 1200 (D.C.2008) (noting that the District of Columbia Workers' Compensation Act and the CMPA are conceptually close, and that case law under one act is informative as to the other, id. at 1199); see also Grayson v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 516 A.2d 909, 911 (D.C.1986). The ALJ and CRB also correctly recognized that, in this jurisdiction, the general rule [is] that the occurrence of employee injuries sustained off the work premises, while en route to or from work, do not fall within the category of injuries `in the course of employment.' Grayson, 516 A.2d at 911 (quoting 1 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation, § 6.10 (1984)). This rule, referred to as the going and coming rule, Kolson v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 699 A.2d 357, 359 (D.C.1997), admits of an exception in cases where travel is an integral part of [the] job[], ... as differentiated from [where] employees [] commute daily from home to a single workplace, an exception justified on the basis that [t]raveling employees' travel is deemed a work-related risk. Id. at 360 (citation omitted). We find no fault with the ALJ's and CRB's reasoning that traveling to and from and attending the vocational-rehabilitation job interview were not part of Nixon's work and that Nixon was not a traveling employee at the time of her vehicle accident. Nor do we disagree with their conclusion that the medical expenses Nixon incurred for treatment of the injuries she sustained upon leaving the job interview were not compensable under the limited exception announced in Kolson ( i.e., that the traditional meaning of `arising in the course of the employment' generally is not followed in traveling employee cases,) 699 A.2d at 361. However, as we go on to explain, we conclude that we must remand this matter for further consideration by the administrative agency, because neither the ALJ nor the CRB considered whether an additional departure from the the traditional meaning of `arising in the course of the employment' might be warranted here  i.e., whether Nixon's claim might be covered as involving what Professor Larson refers to as a quasi-course of employment injury. See 1 A. LARSON, LARSON'S WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW, § 10.05 (2008). Professor Larson's treatise describes some jurisdictions' acceptance of claims for injuries incurred in connection with recognition of quasi-course of employment activities, i.e., activities undertaken by the employee following upon his or her injury which, although they take place outside the time and space limits of the employment, and would not be considered employment activities for usual purposes, are nevertheless related to the employment in the sense that they are necessary or reasonable activities that would not have been undertaken but for the compensable injury. Id. (citing, inter alia, Palmer v. New York State Div. for Youth, 2 A.D.3d 1123, 768 N.Y.S.2d 694 (N.Y.App.Div.2003)); see also Larson's Workers' Compensation, § 10.07 (Accident During Trip to Doctor's Office, citing, inter alia, Freeman v. Texas Comp. Ins. Co., 603 S.W.2d 186 (Tex. 1980); Woodrum v. Premier Auto Glass Co., 103 Ohio App.3d 530, 660 N.E.2d 491 (1995)); and Laines v. Workmen's Comp. App. Bd., 48 Cal.App.3d 872, 122 Cal.Rptr. 139 (1975)). In Palmer, the claimant was injured in a car accident on her way to meet with her attorney and the compensation carrier for a review of her continuing eligibility for compensation benefits. 768 N.Y.S.2d at 694. The New York court held that the claimant's new injury was a compensable consequence of her original injury because it was undisputed that [the] claimant's purpose for traveling to the meeting was wholly related to her claim and, further, that said meeting was scheduled at the carrier's request and for its sole benefit[,] ... [and] that [the] claimant would not have incurred her injuries had the carrier not requested the meeting. Id. In Freeman, the decedent was killed in a car accident after leaving the location of a polygraph test that his employer had directed him to take. 603 S.W.2d at 191. The Texas court held that because the employer had directed the decedent to make the trip, his beneficiaries were entitled to benefits under an exception to the general rule of noncompensability of travel injuries. 603 S.W.2d at 191. In Woodrum, the Ohio court held that the claimant was entitled to benefits for injuries he sustained while returning from an independent medical examination ordered by the Bureau of Workers' Compensation to determine his eligibility to continue to receive benefits from a prior, work-related injury, reasoning that claimant's injuries were directly and proximately caused by circumstances that arose out of his employment and that the obligations necessitated by [claimant's original] injuries in order to participate in the Workers' Compensation Fund, directly resulted in his new injuries. 660 N.E.2d at 493. And in Laines, the California court held that where the claimant's employer directed claimant to seek medical treatment for a workplace injury and claimant was injured in an accident while en route to required medical examination, the injury should be held to be an injury arising out of and in the course of employment and was compensable. 48 Cal.App.3d at 877, 122 Cal. Rptr. 139. Here, the ALJ accepted Nixon's testimony that her DOES claims examiner told her that she had to show up [for the February 22, 2001 job interview set up by her vocational rehabilitation counselor] notwithstanding the weather conditions, and notwithstanding her request that the interview be rescheduled in light of those conditions. Nixon testified that in the snow-related accident that occurred as she was driving home from the interview, she sustained a head injury that caused her to undergo months of cognitive rehabilitation and to incur related medical bills. These facts raise an issue of whether Nixon's head injury should be compensable as an injury arising out of her employment and sustained in the quasi-course of [her] employment. The CRB did not address this issue because it narrowly read Nixon's argument as a claim that she was injured in the course of her employment and that her medical expenses should be covered under the traveling employee doctrine. However, as we construe Nixon's argument, both to the CRB and to this court, her point was broader than that. She asserts that her injury occurred within the scope of employment because it would have never occurred but for her employment-created obligation to participate in scheduled vocational rehabilitation activities. [9] We express no view as to whether Nixon's medical benefits claim is compensable under the CMPA, but instead remand the case so that DOES may consider in the first instance what appears to be a question of first impression in this jurisdiction: whether medical benefits are available for injuries that a claimant sustains while engaged in an activity required as a part of the disability benefits program. See Smith v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 934 A.2d 428, 437 (D.C.2007) (Ordinarily, ... this court will not attempt to interpret the agency's statute until the agency itself has done so. Instead, we will remand to permit the agency to engage in the necessary analysis of the legislation it is charged with carrying out. In particular, a dispute over the coverage of the law  such as we have in the case now before us  is quintessentially a decision for the [agency] to make in the first instance, involving, as it does, a situation where an agency is delegated broad authority to administer a statutory scheme) (citations omitted); see also Howard Univ. Hosp. v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 952 A.2d 168, 181 (D.C.2008) (we should not defer to the CRB's construction when the Board has not included in its calculus ... the analogous authorities from other jurisdictions, several of them based on Professor Larson's analysis. Instead, we remand the issue to the CRB for reconsideration in light, inter alia, of the authorities cited herein); Bell Atlantic-Washington, D.C., Inc. v. PSC, 767 A.2d 262, 267 (D.C.2001) (the Commission has not addressed explicitly the interpretive issues that we perceive. Absent any sign that the Commission recognized those issues and actually did undertake to resolve them, we are reluctant to assume an implicit resolution based solely on the Commission's ultimate decision in this case.... We think the soundest course is to remand this matter so that the Commission may address the issues we have identified in further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion); Council of the District of Columbia v. Clay, 683 A.2d 1385, 1389 (D.C.1996) (We have ... generally declined to defer to the administrative construction of a statute where the agency has failed to ... identify the question of construction being addressed) (citations omitted). [10] For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the CRB's decision as to the reduction in Nixon's disability benefits. We reverse, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion, the CRB's ruling with respect to Nixon's claim for medical benefits arising out of her 2001 vehicle accident. So ordered.