Opinion ID: 1548358
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Payne Has an Ongoing Disability

Text: The ALJ correctly recognized that Payne was not entitled to a presumption regarding the nature and extent of his claimed disability. See Golding-Alleyne v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 980 A.2d 1209, 1213 (D.C.2009) (On the question of the nature and extent of [her] disability, . . . the claimant is not entitled to any presumptions.) (citation omitted); Hiligh v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 935 A.2d 1070, 1075 (D.C.2007). However, the ALJ erroneously stated that Payne's burden was only to present substantial credible evidence that he has a disability entitling him to the requested level of benefits. In fact, the correct burden of proof is a preponderance of the evidence. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth., 926 A.2d at 149; see also Golding-Alleyne, 980 A.2d at 1215-16 (The claimant had the burden of proof when presenting her case to the ALJ, and she must prove her case by a preponderance of the evidence. . . . Merely presenting `substantial evidence' to support [a] claim is not necessarily enough to carry the burden of persuading the finder of fact.). Having misapprehended Payne's burden of proof, the ALJ made no finding as to whether Payne proved by a preponderance of the evidence that his disability was ongoing. For its part, the Board overlooked the ALJ's articulation of an incorrect standard and his failure to weigh the parties' evidence under the applicable preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. Notwithstanding, if the Board had concluded as a matter of law that the evidence was so one-sided that it would have been unreasonable for the ALJ to find that Payne had failed to prove his ongoing disability by a preponderance of the evidence, the Board could properly have upheld the ALJ's determination. But the Board never made such a legal determination. Quite the contrary, the Board's analysis implies that WMATA bore the burden of proof, because the Board invoked a review standard that applies when the party with the burden of proof has petitioned for review. In reasoning nor do we agree . . . that [WMATA's] evidence compels . . . a conclusion that the air is sufficiently dust-free to permit this worker to return to [the work] environment, the Board employed a test that this and other courts have used in analyzing a claimant's contention that the hearing officer erred in finding that the claimant did not meet his burden of proof as to disability. See id. at 1216 (applying the rule that [w]hen an agency concludes that the party with the burden of proof failed to meet that burden, we will reverse that determination only if the record compels a contrary conclusion to the exclusion of any other inference) (quoting Douglas v. Board of Trs. of the Me. State Ret. Sys., 669 A.2d 177, 179 (Me.1996)). [5] We could avoid a remand if we were able to make a legal determination that the evidence compelled a determination that Payne met (or failed to meet) his burden of proof as to his claim that workplace conditions prevent him from returning to work. However, in our judgment, the evidence does not so clearly favor either side that we can make such a determination. As we explain below, this is true as to both the evidence about dust and the evidence about temperature extremes. In addition to Payne's own testimony about dust in the workplace, the ALJ had before him numerous statements by Dr. Armstrong about Payne's inability to tolerate dust at the Metro station. For example, on December 21, 2006, Dr. Armstrong opined that Payne must be relocated away from the dusty, dirty underground Farragut West 18th Street station. [6] On September 17, 2007, Dr. Armstrong recommended that Payne continue to stay away from the dusty environment of the Metro Tunnels. While Dr. Armstrong stated that any outside station is acceptable as a workplace environment for Payne, evidence was offered and the ALJ found that station managers choose Metro stations according to seniority, with the result that Payne could not be guaranteed the choice of an open-air outdoor station. Although Payne had not returned to work since August 29, 2006, to test his reaction to the underground station, he testified that he rode the subway to his lawyer's office and to the hearing, and that I cough and I can tell that I have to use my inhaler after I use it because there's just something in the dust that getsthat chokes me. As WMATA argues, however, Dr. Armstrong's statements sometimes were tentative, often were vague and non-specific about Payne's environmental restrictions, and seem to be based largely, if not entirely, on Payne's own allegations about the dusty environment at Farragut West and its impact on him. [7] In his September 11, 2006 letter, Dr. Armstrong stated that when he first saw Payne on May 15, 2006, Payne complained about the dusty environment at the Metro Station, and was given a note to take to Metro suggesting that his asthma and respiratory illnesses were worsened by the dust exposures at the Farragut West 18th Street Station and that he needed to be relocated to less irritating job sites. (italics added). By contrast, Dr. Armstrong's almost-contemporaneous note about the May 15, 2006 visit states that he diagnosed Payne as having allergies to pollen with chest tightness and wheezing. [8] Asked what he meant by the dust exposure that worsened Payne's asthma, Dr. Armstrong answered all airborn [sic] irritants that he must breathe into his lungs. Asked whether there was a minimum or measurable level of dust exposure that Payne must avoid, Dr. Armstrong answered, whatever level irritates his lungs. WMATA presented evidence, via the testimony of IME Dr. Scott, that the only way one would know [whether Payne's symptoms were related to dust] would be to do an industrial hygiene survey to see what his exposure actually is. Dr. Scott was asked, If a person is affected by dust and you are given reports indicating [that] a certain work area meets the OSHA standards as far as the air sampling and the air quality, would that person be released, in your opinion, to work in that environment? He answered, [I]f you had data to show that your dust levels were low, then it certainly would not be the dust that's causing the problem. [9] He testified that the OSHA standard as to dust levels is a pretty good guideline as to whether there is excess dust. Through Dr. Jurinski, WMATA presented the results of an industrial hygiene study. As already described, Dr. Jurinski testified that the dust levels at both the Farragut West and Foggy Bottom stations were well below OSHA limits. Since Dr. Jurinski supplied the industrial-hygiene report that Dr. Scott indicated would mean that the dust levels in the station met Payne's medical restrictions, the ALJ could not properly discount Dr. Jurinski's testimony on the sole ground that Dr. Jurinski himself was not a medical doctor and that no physician had reviewed Dr. Jurinski's findings. [10] Regarding the temperature environment in the Metro stations, Dr. Armstrong stated on September 1, 2006, that Payne's respiratory illness was worsened by . . . unbearable heat (nonfunctional air cond[itioner]). [11] Dr. Scott determined that Payne is able to return to work as a station manager as long as the HVAC system where he is workingis functioning properly. According to Dr. Scott, when he examined Payne on November 30, 2006, Payne, too, said that he believed he could work as long as there was someplace he could go where the HVAC system worked. But the evidence was conflicting regarding whether the workplace would continue to expose Payne to excessive heat (or cold). WMATA's evidence was that the August 29, 2006 air-conditioner malfunction that Payne described was fixed the next day. As already described, WMATA also introduced an exhibit showing August 2006 air temperatures well below the 90-degree temperature that Dr. Armstrong identified as the temperature above which the heat was too extreme for Payne to work. WMATA emphasizes the evidence that Payne experiences his claimed difficulties with temperature extremes even outside the workplace, including his testimony that he sometimes can't catch his breath when he gets out of the shower, that he almost passed out while working in his yard in the cold of December, that he has canceled doctor's appointments because of the weather, and that he normally [doesn't] go out until the afternoon to avoid temperature extremes and sometimes cannot leave [his] house because of the heat. Although this evidence would not necessarily favor WMATA if Payne's sensitivity to temperature extremes had developed ab initio in the workplace, the ALJ did not so find. Rather, as the Board explained, the ALJ made no finding that Payne's pulmonary condition was caused ab initio by his employment, or that the condition was worsened as a permanent medical matter (i.e., rendered worse in the sense that the exposure causing the disability made respondent more susceptible as a general matter to such exposures than he had been previously, or that the workplace exposure heightened Respondent's preexisting sensitivity to exposure to dust or heat). [12] Payne relies on WMATA's job description for station managers (Physical Requirements for Station Managers), which specifies that station managers may be required to spend prolonged periods of time exposed to hot and/or cold weather. In addition, Payne testified that the air conditioner never worked, that the August 29, 2006 incident was not just an isolated incident, that there were air conditioner failures for six months at Foggy Bottom, and that he made continuous complaints at Foggy Bottom about the station air conditioner and they never repaired it. He testified that regardless of the WMATA exhibit showing air temperatures, he frequently found himself wringing wet with perspiration while at work, because sometimes, when the station is crowded after a train has arrived, you feel like you're in a tropical zone, while in the mornings and at night, the station is freezing. It was the role of the ALJ to be the sole judge of where the preponderance of the evidence lay, i.e., to weigh the evidence that we have summarized and other evidence in the record and to determine whether or not the preponderance of the evidence supported a finding of ongoing disability. Because the ALJ did not make a preponderance finding, and because we cannot say that the evidence compelled a finding one way or the other, a remand is necessary, so that the ALJ can make the necessary finding. [13] Cf. Logan v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 805 A.2d 237, 239, 240 (D.C.2002) (concluding that where the hearing examiner's analysis of the nature and extent of a claimant's disability reflect[ed] confusion as to the correct allocation of the burden of proof, the court could not determine whether conclusions legally sufficient to support the decision flow[ed] rationally from the findings, and thus a remand was necessary for further consideration of the evidence by the examiner under the proper standards (quoting Pickrel v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 760 A.2d 199, 203 (D.C.2000) (citation and quotation marks omitted))). Accordingly, we affirm the determination that Payne was rendered temporarily disabled because of the August 29, 2006 incident; but, on the issue of ongoing disability, we remand this matter for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. So ordered.