Opinion ID: 2008768
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The District's proposal to transfer the case to the Insurance Administration.

Text: Believing that he had insurance problems, Mr. Atwater filed his initial petition with the Insurance Administration of the DCRA. The agency transferred the case to the Office of Adjudication, presumably because that Office had authority to resolve all issues relating to all parties while the Insurance Administration could not address claims unrelated to insurance practices. Now, more than four years later, the District asks us to remand the case for de novo resolution by the Superintendent of Insurance. The District's proposal is premised on flawed assumptions, and we decline to follow it. The District argues that the CPPA was designed to supplement procedures and remedies available under other consumer protection laws, ... not to supplant them, when the only difference between the administrative enforcement schemes in the two statutes is the administrative decision-maker. (Emphasis in original). Assuming, arguendo, that this proposition is correct, it has no application to the present case. The remedies available under the CPPA are far broader than those under the No-Fault Act. The latter statute provides that if the Superintendent of Insurance determines that a policy was improperly cancelled, then the insurer shall be required to pay all the claims for which it would be liable under the policy. The remedy, in other words, is to reinstate the policy. § 35-2109(d)(1) and (i)(3). [13] Under the CPPA, on the other hand, an administrative law judge may not only grant the relief available from the Insurance Administration, but may also issue a cease and desist order, award contract damages and restitution, impose costs, and grant preventive relief against future violations. § 28-3905(g). Accordingly, contrary to the District's assumption, the identity of the administrative decision-maker is not the only difference between the two enforcement schemes. The District asserts that the agency's administrative practice supports its position that we should remand to the Superintendent of Insurance. It claims that the Office of Adjudication failed to refer this case to the Insurance Administration by oversight, and that the agency's ordinary procedure would have been so to refer it. The District appears to be unaware that the transfer was actually made in the reverse direction after Mr. Atwater had filed in the forum which the District now says is the correct one. In construing a statute, courts normally accord great deference to the interpretation of the agency charged with its administration, particularly if the interpretation is of long standing and has been consistently applied. INS v. Cardoza Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 445-46, 107 S.Ct. 1207, 1220-21, 94 L.Ed.2d 434 (1987); North Haven Bd. of Educ. v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 522 n. 12, 102 S.Ct. 1912, 1918 n. 12, 72 L.Ed.2d 299 (1982). Less deference is appropriate where the interpretation lacks these attributes. Cardoza Fonseca, 480 U.S. at 446 n. 30, 107 S.Ct. at 1221 n. 30; Stark v. Brannan, 82 F.Supp. 614, 618 (D.D.C.1949), aff'd, 87 U.S. App.D.C. 388, 185 F.2d 871, aff'd, 342 U.S. 451, 72 S.Ct. 433, 96 L.Ed. 497 (1951); Curran v. Office of Personnel Management Bureau, 566 F.Supp. 1511, 1514 (D.D.C.1983), aff'd, 236 U.S. App.D.C. 351, 735 F.2d 617 (1984). We are not persuaded on this record that the alleged administrative practice presented to us in this case merits deference. The District contends that the Council's choice of the Superintendent of Insurance to resolve complaints under the No-Fault Act is particularly important here, where the insurance company's defense to the Atwater complaint is based on another statute under the superintendent's jurisdiction, D.C.Code § 35-1561, which is not a consumer protection law.  (Emphasis added). Like Mr. Atwater, however, we are at a loss to understand why a law protecting consumers from arbitrary cancellations of their insurance policies is not a consumer protection law. Indeed, the basic issue here is whether the case is governed by both of two consumer protection statutes or by only one. The District also claims that there is no warrant for reading the [CPPA] as allowing consumers to alter the Council's choice of expert administrator by the happenstance of where consumers file their administrative complaints. As we have noted above, however, there is no basis for accusing Mr. Atwater of forum-shopping, nor is he asking that Judge Nelson retain jurisdiction because of his choice of decision-maker. It was he who initially filed his petition with the Insurance Administration. It was the agency which transferred the case to the Office of Adjudication, presumably to avoid piecemeal litigation. Given this history, remanding the action now would have the effect of telling Mr. Atwater, four years after he filed the complaint in the office which the District now says is the right one, that because the case was assigned by the agency to be heard by one of its offices rather than by another, he must begin the process all over again. As Mr. Atwater justifiably remarks, Franz Kafka could not imagine a more horrific bureaucratic scenario. Given the additional remedies available under the CPPA and the non-exclusivity of the remedies under the No-Fault Act, we agree with Mr. Atwater that Judge Nelson correctly retained jurisdiction. [14]