Court Opinion

ID: 9760529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:58:52.631682+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:13.226808
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
Adopting the language of one of this nation’s most eloquent jurists, the Supreme Court recently capsulized in two sentences the principles which, in my opinion, ought to dispose of this case:
What the [District] asks is not a construction of a statute, but, in effect, an enlargement of it by the court, so that what was omitted, presumably by inadvertence, may be included within its scope. To supply omissions transcends the judicial function.
West Virginia Univ. Hosps., Inc. v. Casey, — U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 1138, 1148, *637113 L.Ed.2d 68 (1991), (quoting Iselin v. United States, 270 U.S. 245, 250-51, 46 S.Ct. 248, 249-50, 70 L.Ed. 566 (1926) (per Brandéis, J.)). At the risk of precipitating a critic’s resort to Emerson’s old chestnut that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I continue to think that we were right the first time. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
The problem presented by the District’s petition for rehearing is not an easy one. I agree with my colleagues that it would have made sense as a matter of legislative policy to include in the CMPA a provision that the administrative remedies created by the statute for employees aggrieved by adverse actions, unfavorable performance ratings and the like shall be the exclusive means by which such persons may vindicate their rights. The Council of the District of Columbia could and perhaps should have so provided, but did not do so. Judges have no authority to correct perceived legislative errors and, if the legislation contains an inadvertent (or intentional) omission, then I think it is up to the Council and not to this court to provide a remedy.
I take it to be conceded for purposes of this appeal that but for the enactment of the CMPA, Ms. Thompson would be entitled to sue the District and Mr. Maury in the Superior Court for defamation and for intentional infliction of emotional distress.1 If there were no CMPA, she would have the right to a determination by a jury of her peers of the issues of fact. If she prevailed,2 she would be entitled to the various remedies available to other plaintiffs who have brought successful tort actions of this kind. The District apparently contends, and my colleagues now agree, that although such a right of action would exist in the absence of the CMPA, it was destroyed as a result of the passage of that statute. I submit that there are profound difficulties with this position and that the disposition urged upon us by the District is legislative rather than judicial in character.
My colleagues concede that there is not a word either in the text of the CMPA or in its legislative history to the effect that the Act’s remedies in relation to performance ratings, adverse actions and employee grievances are exclusive, or that common law judicial remedies are to be abolished.3 The legislature’s silence on this subject is in stark contrast to its enactment of an express exclusivity provision governing disability claims. D.C.Code § l-624.16(c) (1987) provides:
The liability of the District of Columbia government ... under this subchapter ... with respect to the injury or death of an employee, is exclusive and instead of all other liability of the District of Columbia government ... to the employee ... in a direct judicial proceeding, [or] in a civil action....
Obviously, as we noted in Thompson I, supra, 570 A.2d at 289, the Council knew how to make administrative remedies exclusive, and inserted a provision which unambiguously effected that result in one part of the CMPA but omitted it from another part.
“[E]ach part or section [of a statute] should be construed in connection with every other part or section so as to produce a harmonious whole.” 2A N. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 46.05, at 90 (4th ed. 1984 & Cum.Supp.1990); see Howard v. Riggs Nat’l Bank, 432 A.2d 701, 709 (D.C.1981). In determining the meaning of a statute, the court must not be *638guided by a single sentence or part of a sentence, but must look to the provisions of the enactment as a whole. Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U.S. 270, 285, 76 S.Ct. 349, 359, 100 L.Ed. 309 (1956). “If ... comparison of one clause with the rest of the statute makes a certain proposition clear and undoubted, the act must be construed accordingly_" Sutherland, supra, § 46.05 at 90 (quoting Attorney General v. Sillem, 2 H & C 431, -, 159 Eng.Rptr. 178, - (1864)). More specifically,
[w]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.
Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S.Ct. 296, 300, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983) (citation omitted).
The quoted language from Russello fits this case like a glove.4 Application of its principles to the CMPA militates against the notion that an exclusivity provision may be written into the portion of the statute dealing with grievances by judicial “construction” when a legislature which showed elsewhere in the same enactment that it knew exactly how to write such a provision elected not to do so.
Moreover, “[a] statute should not be construed in such a way as to render certain provisions superfluous or insignificant.” District of Columbia v. Acme Reporting Co., 530 A.2d 708, 713 (D.C.1987) (citation omitted); Sutherland, supra, § 46.06 at 104. If the comprehensive character of the CMPA were itself sufficient to render the remedies under the Act exclusive, then the specific exclusivity provision in the part of the statute dealing with disability claims would be superfluous.
The majority’s interpretation of the CMPA also destroys common law rights, and “[t]he cardinal principle of statutory construction is to save and not to destroy.” NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 30, 57 S.Ct. 615, 621, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937). Just as repeals of statutes by implication are not favored, Speyer v. Barry, 588 A.2d 1147, at 1164-65 (D.C.1991), so “[n]o statute is to be construed as altering the common law, farther than its words import.” Shaw v. Railroad Co., 101 U.S. 557, 565, 25 L.Ed. 892 (1880); Monroe v. Foreman, 540 A.2d 736, 739 (D.C.1988). This rule is not an absolute one; it does not require “such an adherence to the letter as would defeat an obvious legislative purpose or lessen the scope plainly intended to be given to the measure.” Jamison v. Encarnacion, 281 U.S. 635, 640, 50 S.Ct. 440, 442, 74 L.Ed. 1082 (1930) (emphasis added); see also Monroe, supra, 540 A.2d at 739 (quoting Jamison). In my opinion, however, it cannot reasonably be contended that an obvious legislative purpose of the CMPA was to preempt common law tort remedies, or that the legislature plainly intended such a result. Indeed, our unanimous initial rejection of that notion seems *639to me to demonstrate that its rectitude is less than plain or obvious.5
The District relies on two separate lines of authority in support of its interpretation of the CMP A, but neither sustains its position. First, it cites cases like David v. United States, 820 F.2d 1038, 1043 (9th Cir.1987), in which a federal employee’s action against her supervisors for intentional infliction of emotional distress was held to be “a common-law cause of action which is preempted by the CSRA” (the federal Civil Service Reform Act). The court did not discuss the reasons for its holding, but cited its previous decision in Lehman v. Morrissey, 779 F.2d 526 (9th Cir.1985) (per curiam). In Lehman, the court explicitly stated that the result it reached on analogous facts was based exclusively on federal preemption doctrine. Id. at 526-27 n. 1. In Broughton v. Courtney, 861 F.2d 639 (11th Cir.1988), also cited by the District, the court likewise unambiguously predicated a similar decision on identical principles.6 As we correctly pointed out in our original opinion in Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 289 & n. 9, this doctrine is not applicable in the present case. It is one thing to infer that Congress did not intend to countenance state law remedies when it enacted preemptive legislation governing the rights of federal employees, and quite another to ascribe to the District’s legislature an intention to destroy common law rights in the absence of any conflict or collision with federal statutory policy.
The District also relies on Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 103 S.Ct. 2404, 76 L.Ed.2d 648 (1983), and on other decisions which follow that case.7 In Bush, an employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who claimed to have been demoted in retaliation for public criticism of his agency asked the Supreme Court “to authorize a new nonstatutory damages remedy for federal employees whose First Amendment rights are violated by their superiors.” Id. at 368, 103 S.Ct. at 2406. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected that invitation to judicial activism:
Because such claims arise out of an employment relationship that is governed by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions giving meaningful remedies against the United States, we conclude that it would be inappropriate for us to supplement that regulatory scheme with a new judicial remedy.
Id. (emphasis added). Observing that Congress could have created such a remedy but did not do so, the Court declined to “create a new substantive legal liability without legislative aid and as at the common law.” Id. at 390, 103 S.Ct. at 2418 (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U.S. 301, 302, 67 S.Ct. 1604, 1605, 91 L.Ed. 2067 (1947)). The Court recognized that
[t]he selection of that policy which is most advantageous to the whole involves a host of considerations that must be weighed and appraised. That function is more appropriately for those who write the laws, rather than for those who interpret them.
Id. 462 U.S. at 380, 103 S.Ct. at 2412 (quoting United States v. Gilman, 347 U.S. 507, 511-13, 74 S.Ct. 695, 697-98, 98 L.Ed. 898 (1954)).8
*640The present case is the converse of Bush. Here, the court is not being asked to create a new non-statutory remedy which the legislature has failed to provide. Rather, the District is demanding that we do for it what the Council has failed to do, namely, to abolish a common law right of action. The same canons of judicial self-restraint which persuaded the Court not to conjure up a new right and judicial remedy in Bush should lead us to eschew the destruction of common law rights by judicial fiat. Construction is not legislation and must avoid “that retrospective expansion of meaning which properly deserves the stigma of judicial legislation.” Kirschbaum Co. v. Walling, 316 U.S. 617, 522, 62 S.Ct. 1116, 1119, 86 L.Ed. 1638 (1942).
The District argues that the costs associated with the continued availability of common law remedies are substantial and would undermine CMPA's merit personnel system. The majority disagrees with the District, but discerns a somewhat different problem:
we do agree that the burdens of an employer’s having to anticipate and deal with two, often substantially different remedial systems (one of them protracted litigation) available at the election of each employee are likely to have a chilling effect on mandated and bargained personnel procedures — an effect that could debilitate the very foundation of the merit personnel system.
Maj. op at 634. In other words, the District and my colleagues think the statute has not worked well or will not work well unless we write into it what the Council left out. As Justice Frankfurter explained for the Court in Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, Inc., 322 U.S. 607, 617, 64 S.Ct. 1215, 1221, 88 L.Ed. 1488 (1944), however,
it is no warrant for extending a statute that experience may disclose that it should have been made more comprehensive. The natural meaning of words cannot be displaced by reference to difficulties in administration.
(Citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
The majority has effectively marshalled the arguments against the co-existence of judicial and administrative remedies in this sensitive field. I respect the view that ambiguities in legislation should, if possible, be resolved in a manner which will avoid unreasonable or inequitable results. I do not think, however, that invocation of such a principle will support our reading into the CMPA something that the Council could have written but did not write. The District’s policy arguments may well be persuasive, but they are directed to the wrong forum. They call for a legislative remedy, not a judicial one. I therefore adhere to our initial resolution of this appeal.

.The District states in the introduction to its petition that
[f]or the reasons that follow, the [CMPA] should be interpreted as preempting common law actions based on activities that are properly classifiable as personnel actions.
No other contention is made, and my colleagues likewise rely entirely on the CMPA. Maj. op. at note 17; cf. id. at note 24. I therefore do not address in this dissenting opinion the question whether the right to sue the appellants in tort existed prior to the effective date of the CMPA.

. I am not addressing here the merits of these claims. I adhere in this regard to our analysis in Thompson I, 570 A.2d at 289-98.

. See, e.g., Gilmer v. Interstate/Johnson Lane Corp., — U.S. -, -, 111 S.Ct. 1647, 1654, 114 L.Ed.2d 26 (1991) (where legislature intended to exclude or restrict a particular forum for resolving claims, "that intention will be deducible from text or legislative history.”) (Citation omitted).

. In spite of my colleagues’ extensive discussion of the differing origins of the CMPA’s disability and adverse action provisions, they cannot and do not deny that, in the language of Russello, the legislature "included particular language in one section of a statute but omit[ted] it in another section of the same act.” Id. Surely common sense tells us that the writers or sponsors of the CMPA would probably read their handiwork and notice the stark contrast between the two parts of the enactment. I search the majority opinion in vain for a case that holds that two different sections of the same statute (even a big one) ought not to be compared with one another where this will help to ascertain legislative intent.
In Holt v. United States, 565 A.2d 970, 975 (D.C.1989) (en banc), on which my colleagues place their reliance for the proper occasion for construction "in pari materia," we observed that
the explicit inclusion of the element of intent to extort in the extortion prohibition with which it was enacted suggests that the legislature knew how to specify such intent if it wished.
(Emphasis added). I suggest that this absolutely unassailable proposition, contained in an opinion which Judge Belson wrote and which Judge Ferren and I joined, has considerable relevance to the present case. If my colleagues will substitute "exclusivity provision” for "intent to extort” (and change a couple of other contextual words), this well-considered passage from Holt will lead them directly to what I view as the correct resolution of the present appeal.

. I agree with the majority that the CMPA "plainly” provides for a comprehensive system of administrative review of employer actions, as well as for judicial review. What it does not provide, plainly, obscurely, or at all, is that the aggrieved employee cannot go to court instead. If that is what the drafters intended, then we are confronted, in Churchill’s phrase, with a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” as to why they did not say so.

. "[T]he fact that giving preemptive effect to a federal statute would leave an individual without a remedy does not mean that Congress did not intend to preempt state law.” Broughton, supra, 861 F.2d at 643 (citing Howard v. Parisian, Inc., 807 F.2d 1560, 1565 (11th Cir.1987)).

. See, e.g., Karahalios v. National Fed’n of Fed. Employees, Local 1263, 489 U.S. 527, 536, 109 S.Ct. 1282, 1288, 103 L.Ed.2d 539 (1989); Spagnola v. Mathis, 273 U.S.App.D.C. 247, 253 n. 10, 859 F.2d 223, 229 n. 10 (1988) (per curiam) (en banc).

. The majority also relies on United States v. Fausto, 484 U.S. 439, 108 S.Ct. 668, 98 L.Ed.2d 830 (1988), in which a sharply divided Supreme Court held that the CSRA precludes review of certain adverse personnel actions under the Back Pay Act. The Court explained that its *640decision was not at odds with the presumption against implicit repeals of legislation, for the Back Pay Act was being left intact and the Court was overruling only "a legal disposition implied by [the] statutory text.” Id. at 453, 108 S.Ct. at 676. In the present case, the construction urged upon us by the District abrogates altogether the common law rights and remedies of District employees to sue in tort in situations of this kind.
My colleagues also say that it is "interesting to note” that in Fausto, "no one sought to argue against such preclusion by citing the absence of an exclusivity provision, in contrast with the presence of an exclusivity provision in FECA_” Maj. op. at note 20. However interesting this may be, it has absolutely no prece-dential significance. As the Supreme Court explained in Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511, 45 S.Ct. 148, 149, 69 L.Ed. 411 (1925),
[t]he most that can be said is that the point was in the cases if anyone had seen fit to raise it. Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.
In fact, Judge Ferren was a member of the unanimous division which quoted most of this language with approval, and followed its dictates, in Thompson v. United States, 546 A.2d 414, 423 n. 14 (D.C.1988).