Opinion ID: 2654896
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Consecutive Payment of Awards

Text: We come now to Brown‟s objection to the CRB‟s alternative holding that her awards for both schedule and non-schedule permanent partial disability benefits (assuming Brown is or becomes eligible to receive them) must be paid to her consecutively rather than concurrently.53 Brown does not persuade us that the 50 Gay v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 644 A.2d 1326, 1328 (D.C. 1994). 51 Mushroom Transp. v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 698
52 King v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 742 A.2d 460, 466 (D.C. 1999). 53 In light of our remand on the suspension issue, we need not reach this question. But if Brown prevails on the suspension issue below (or otherwise (continued…) 27 Board failed to articulate a reasoned interpretation of the Workers‟ Compensation Act or otherwise erred in reaching its conclusion.54 As the Board stated, quoting an opinion of this court and an authoritative treatise on workers‟ compensation law, “where concurrent injuries result from the same accident, the normal rule is that, since a person can be no more than totally disabled at a given point, he or she cannot be awarded both total permanent and permanent partial benefits for the same injurious episode, nor can that person be awarded a cumulation of partial benefits whose sum total is greater than the (continued…) becomes eligible for benefits), the CRB‟s consecutive payment holding would have renewed importance to the case. See 13B CHARLES A. WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER, & EDWARD H. COOPER, FED. PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 3533 & n.21 (3d ed. 2008) (“Courts recognize that it may be valuable to decide alternative grounds, even though not all are necessary[.]”). 54 PEPCO mistakenly argues that this issue is not properly before us because Brown did not immediately petition for judicial review of the CRB‟s remand order, in which the Board affirmed the ALJ‟s ruling that Brown‟s schedule and non-schedule benefits run consecutively but remanded the case for the ALJ to determine whether benefits were still suspended. The remand order was interlocutory and therefore, absent extraordinary circumstances not present here, unreviewable until the administrative proceedings produced a final decision. See Washington Hosp. Ctr. v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 712 A.2d 1018, 1020 (D.C. 1998). 28 benefits for permanent total disability.”55 The Board declared itself “persuaded by this authority.” The “normal rule” means that the combined weekly benefits for two partially disabling injuries (e.g., schedule and non-schedule disability payments) should never be higher than the weekly maximum payment for total disability. As Larson explains, the “theoretical reason” for this rule “is that, at a given moment in time, a person can be no more than totally disabled.”56 Otherwise stated, a partially disabled worker, who by definition remains capable of earning some wages, should not be compensated at a higher rate than a totally disabled worker who can earn nothing. Larson adds that a “practical reason” often supports the “normal rule” as well—if the combined weekly benefits of an employee who is capable of working exceed the weekly maximum for total disability, “it may be more profitable for [the employee] to be disabled than to be well—a situation which compensation law studiously avoids in order to prevent inducement to malingering.”57 55 Howard Univ. Hosp. v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 952 A.2d 168, 175 (D.C. 2008) (quoting LARSON § 92.01[2]; internal quotation marks, brackets, and emphasis omitted). 56 LARSON § 92.01[1]. 57 Id. Under the District‟s law, this “practical” rationale is less persuasive when the employee is receiving schedule benefits, because the employee can keep (continued…) 29 This rule does not mean a permanently disabled employee is forbidden to receive both a schedule and a non-schedule award if the combined weekly compensation from the two awards would be higher than the weekly compensation for total disability. In the District of Columbia, as in many jurisdictions, there are durational limitations on permanent partial disability awards. D.C. Code § 321505 (b) provides that “[f]or any one injury causing temporary or permanent partial disability, the payment for disability benefits shall not continue for more than a total of 500 weeks.”58 D.C. Code § 32-1508 specifies lower durational limits on the payment of benefits for schedule injuries—for example, the compensation period is 234 weeks for the loss of an arm in the case of an injury occurring on or after April 16, 1999.59 Consequently, as Larson states, “[t]he great majority of decisions have held” that when an employee has more than one permanent partial disability award, the awards can be paid consecutively—“the maximum allowances for these injuries can, so to speak, be laid end-to-end.”60 (continued…) receiving his or her schedule benefits after returning to work. See Smith v. District of Columbia Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 548 A.2d 95, 101-02 (D.C. 1988). 58 An extension of up to 167 weeks may be granted in cases of whole body impairment exceeding twenty percent under American Medical Association guidelines. D.C. Code § 32-1505 (b). 59 Id. § 32-1508 (3)(A), (V)(iii). 30 That is what the Board held in this case with respect to schedule and nonschedule awards for injuries deriving from a single work accident.61 Its decision to follow what Larson calls “the normal rule” with respect to concurrent permanent partial disability awards was presaged by the conclusion the Board reached a year earlier in Ambrose v. Howard University.62 In Ambrose, on remand from this court, the CRB considered the related question of whether a claimant may receive permanent partial schedule disability benefits simultaneously with permanent total disability benefits.63 After considering, inter alia, the “absence of express statutory authority” for such concurrent payment and the lack of support for it in the relevant (continued…) 60 LARSON § 92.02. “This result,” Larson adds, “has been reached as to almost every permutation and combination of temporary and permanent, partial and total.” Id. 61 Disability awards relating to injuries incurred in different work incidents are not at issue in this case and we do not address them in this opinion. They may raise more complex questions. Cf. Stevedoring Servs. of Am. v. Price, 382 F.3d 878, 888 (9th Cir. 2004) (holding that “when an employee‟s earnings have increased between the time of a prior permanent partial disability and subsequent permanent total disability, permitting him to retain the full amount of both awards does not result in any double dipping if the employee‟s increase in earnings [was] not caused by a change in wage-earning capacity”). 62 CRB No. 06-23(R), 2008 DC Wrk. Comp. LEXIS 365 (D.C. Dep‟t of Emp‟t Servs. 2008). 63 The issue had been presented to this court in Howard Univ. Hosp. v. D.C. Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 952 A.2d 168 (D.C. 2008), on appeal from an earlier decision of the Board in the Ambrose proceedings. Although we expressed (continued…) 31 legislative history,64 precedent under the Longshoreman‟s and Harbor Workers‟ Compensation Act (“LHWCA”),65 and “the purpose and the nature of the benefits” in question,66 the Board held in accordance with Larson‟s statement of the normal (continued…) “considerable doubt” that an employee entitled to permanent total disability benefits could receive partial disability benefits too, we did not decide the question but instead remanded the case to the CRB with directions to reconsider it in light of the authorities cited in our opinion (which included both Larson‟s treatise and case law from other jurisdictions). Id. at 170. 64 2008 DC Wrk. Comp. LEXIS 364, at -15. 65 Comparing the District of Columbia Workers‟ Compensation Act to its federal precursor, the CRB found it persuasive that “the virtually indistinguishable provisions” of the LHWCA “ha[d] been interpreted to exclude schedule awards where there exists a compensation award for permanent total disability.” Id. at -19. The Board found precedent from other jurisdictions less relevant because of differences in the pertinent statutory language. 66 Id. at . As the CRB explained, payment of schedule benefits along with permanent total disability benefits would be contrary to the policy of the Workers‟ Compensation Act: A schedule award is intended to compensate for economic, not physical, impairment by providing advance payment for future wage loss anticipated to result from a work-related injury irrespective of any wage loss actually incurred. . . . However, where an injured employee is found to be totally and permanently disabled, the question of the impact of the employee‟s injury upon future earnings potential has been conclusively resolved. Payment of a permanent partial disability schedule award in addition to permanent total disability benefits based on actual wage loss not only fails to further the intended purpose underlying the (continued…) 32 rule that “an injured worker is not entitled to receive permanent partial disability benefits . . . concurrently with the award of permanent total disability benefits.”67 The considerations on which the CRB relied in Ambrose support its holding in the present case. First, the Workers‟ Compensation Act does not provide that permanent partial disability benefits must be paid concurrently if they would exceed the benefits payable for total disability.68 To the contrary, the Act strongly (continued…) provision of schedule awards, the concurrent payment of both actually undermines the overriding purpose and intent of the Act . . . of providing compensation for actual wages lost. Id. at -21 (citing Smith v. D.C. Dep’t of Emp’t Servs., 548 A.2d 95, 100-102 (D.C. 1988)). 67 Id. at . 68 D.C. Code § 32-1508 (3) provides that permanent partial disability compensation “shall be in addition to compensation for temporary total disability or temporary partial disability.” The CRB has construed this to mean that “permanent partial schedule benefits may be paid concurrently with payments of temporary total disability or temporary partial disability benefits.” Ambrose, 2008 D.C. Wrk. Comp. LEXIS 365, at -13 (emphasis added). Under the interpretive canon “expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” the CRB took the omission of a comparable provision for payment of permanent partial disability benefits in addition to permanent total disability benefits as a sign that the legislature did not intend to permit such payments. Id. at -14; see also Howard Univ. Hosp., 952 A.2d at 174. The same argument might be made with respect to the concurrent payment of schedule and non-schedule permanent partial disability benefits; but see infra footnote 72. It is true that, in Morrison v. District of Columbia Department of Employment Services, 736 A.2d 223, 226 (D.C. 1999), we held that (continued…) 33 implies that a combination of even the most serious injuries may at most entitle an employee to receive permanent total disability compensation.69 Moreover, the Act specifically provides that any multiple schedule awards the claimant receives “shall run consecutively.”70 Consecutive payment is necessary to avoid paying the partially disabled employee more per week than if the employee were totally disabled, because the weekly compensation payable under a single schedule award, 66 2/3% of the employee‟s average weekly wages, is the same as it is under a total disability award.71 Brown does not dispute that her benefits for her different schedule injuries must be paid consecutively in accordance with D.C. Code § 321508 (3)(U); she argues only that her non-schedule benefits should be paid (continued…) “when a petitioner suffers multiple disabilities from a single injury, that petitioner is entitled to both schedule and non-schedule benefits, subject to proof that the non-schedule disability led to wage loss.” Morrison did not consider, however, whether such payments must be paid consecutively rather than concurrently in order to avoid paying a partially disabled employee more than a totally disabled one in the same circumstances. 69 See D.C. Code § 32-1508 (1) (“Loss of both hands, or both arms, or both feet, or both legs, or both eyes, or of any 2 thereof shall, in the absence of conclusive proof to the contrary, constitute permanent total disability. In all other cases permanent total disability shall be determined only if, as a result of the injury, the employee is unable to earn any wages in the same or other employment[.]”). 70 Id. § 32-1508 (3)(U). 71 Id. § 32-1508 (1), (3). 34 alongside them. Although the Act does not specify how to pay a permanently partially disabled employee who, like Brown, has been awarded both schedule and non-schedule benefits, the logic of the Act dictates that those awards also should “run consecutively” if concurrent payment would overcompensate the employee compared to one who is totally disabled.72 “It makes little sense . . . to compel [the employer] to pay compensation at a greater rate for a less serious occurrence.”73 The essentially identical provisions of the LHWCA have been held to preclude concurrent payments in this situation.74 The purpose and nature of the benefits in question likewise support the CRB‟s decision. As this court said in Smith, schedule benefits for permanent partial disability are “intended to 72 An expressio unius argument could be made to the contrary; i.e., because § 32-1508 (3)(U) requires consecutive payment only of multiple schedule awards, the legislature implicitly must have chosen not to require consecutive payment of schedule and non-schedule awards, and hence must have meant to permit concurrent payment of them. But for all the reasons set forth above, this argument strikes us as implausible. What purpose could the legislature have had for making such a distinction, and for doing so sub silentio? 73 Ito Corp. v. Green, 185 F.3d 239, 243 (4th Cir. 1999). 74 See id. (“In no case should the rate of compensation for a partial disability, or combination of partial disabilities, exceed that payable to the claimant in the event of total disability. To hold otherwise would be to conclude that the whole may be less than the sum of its parts, and we are fairly certain that— although our authority extends to a myriad of matters—we are without jurisdiction to repeal the laws of mathematics.”). 35 compensate only for economic, not physical impairment”; although a schedule award is “payable regardless of actual wage loss, . . . „the schedule was never intended to be a departure from or an exception to the wage-loss principle.‟”75 It would constitute such a departure to pay schedule benefits concurrently with other permanent wage loss benefits—whether those other benefits are for total disability as in Ambrose or a partial disability as in this case—if the combined payments would be more than what the employee could receive even if she were totally disabled. In sum, the CRB has articulated a reasoned and reasonable interpretation of the Act. Brown has advanced no countervailing argument in favor of concurrent payment, nor has she identified any pertinent factor that the Board neglected to consider. We therefore defer to the Board‟s interpretation.