District of Columbia's Public Sector Comp Act Does Not Provide Schedule Benefits for PTSD
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that a public-sector employee may not recover schedule benefits for PTSD pursuant to D.C. Code § 1-623.07 (2016 Repl.) since that statute provides coverage only for those losses specifically detailed therein [Office of Risk Mgmt. v. Jordan, 2020 D.C. App. LEXIS 378 (Sept. 18, 2020)]. With its decision, the appellate court reversed a finding by the District’s Superior Court that held the schedule award statute was sufficiently broad as to provide benefits for an injury to the claimant’s “brain/head” in spite of the fact that no such loss of use was listed.
Background
Ms. Jordan worked as an investigator with the District of Columbia’s Office of Attorney General. She sustained a work-related injury in March 2016, when a faulty fuel pump sprayed natural gas on Ms. Jordan’s face as she fueled her work vehicle. After the incident, Jordan was treated for accidental toxic chemical exposure, and she was initially unable to work. She submitted a workers’ compensation claim, and the Public Sector Workers’ Compensation Program (PSWCP) awarded her temporary total disability benefits based on the diagnosis of a chemical burn.
Jordan’s temporary wage-loss benefits ended in September 2016, when returned to work. A few months later, she was evaluated by Dr. Cynthia Lewis, who performed a psychiatric examination. Dr. Lewis diagnosed Ms. Jordan as having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which Dr. Lewis concluded was directly related to Ms. Jordan’s injury and caused a 6 percent permanent impairment to Jordan’s “whole person.”
Office of Risk Management Says No Schedule Benefits
Based on Dr. Lewis’s diagnosis, Jordan sought an award of PPD benefits under D.C. Code § 1-623.07 (2016 Repl.), which provides compensation to public-sector employees for work-related “permanent disability involving the loss, or loss of use, of a member or function of the body.” Jordan’s application stated that she was seeking compensation for an injury to her “brain/head.” The application was denied by the PSWCP. The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) of the Office of Risk Management (ORM) upheld the denial of benefits, and Jordan sought review in the Superior Court.
Superior Court Disagrees with ORM
The Superior Court reversed, ruling that mental and emotional injuries deriving from physical injuries were compensable under § 1-623.07. The trial court relied upon, among other things, general language in § 1-623.07(a) providing compensation for injuries involving loss or partial loss of the use of a “function of the body.” The trial court also stated that the CRO had applied an unduly rigid reading of § 1-623.07.
D.C. Court of Appeals Finds Claim Foreclosed as Matter of Law
The appellate court observed that Jordan Jordan did not argue that her disability was covered by any of the provisions in § 1-623.07(c) listing specific body parts. Nor did she argue that her disability was covered by the catch-all provision, § 1-623.07(c)(22). Instead, she argued that she was entitled to compensation under § 1-623.07 even if her disability did not fall within the schedule of items listed in subsection (c) of that provision. In other words, said the appellate court, Jordan contended that the list in subsection (c) was not exhaustive. The appellate court disagreed.
The appellate court said § 1-623.07(c) set out a detailed “compensation schedule,” listing various body parts and specifying the duration of the award applicable to each body part. According to the court, there simply was no room under § 1-623.07 for an award of compensation with respect to an unscheduled body part. Moreover, stressed the court, § 1-623.07 provided no way to determine how many weeks’ worth of benefits should be awarded with respect to her claimed, unlisted disability. The court said it could not accept an interpretation that would create such an unmanageable gap.
Schedule Awards Are But One Type of Comp Benefits
The court went on to say that Jordan’s arguments in support of the conclusion that § 1-623.07 should be interpreted to permit schedule awards based on claims not falling within the scope of the items listed in § 1-623.07(c) were not persuasive. For example, Jordan argued that awards for PTSD and other mental disabilities were available under the WCA and FECA, and such awards therefore should also be available to public-sector employees under § 1-623.07. The difficulty with Jordan’s argument, stressed the court, was that schedule awards were only one of several potential workers’ compensation benefits.
The court observed that the District’s public-sector workers’ compensation program provided several different forms of relief in addition to schedule awards under § 1-623.07 [e.g., medical benefits, vocational rehabilitation benefits, total disability benefits, and partial disability benefits. The court stressed that its holding was simply that, as a matter of law, Ms. Jordan’s claimed disability was not a permissible basis for a schedule award under § 1-623.07.
Author’s Comment
One might ask why Jordan did not seek benefits under one of the other types of benefits allowed her under the District’s public-sector workers’ compensation program. She’d had no wage loss. That’s both the “magic” and the “curse” of schedule awards. One qualifies for a schedule award without being required to show a loss of earnings; schedule awards are for “loss of use.” Yet, as shown in this case, schedule awards are generally limited to the loss of use of those body parts, etc. that are scheduled. PTSD isn’t scheduled. Nor was “head/brain” scheduled.