Timed Out: Limitations Addressed in Crutchfield v D.C. Dept. of Employment Services
Teresa Crutchfield, claimant, sustained a work-related injury to her lower back on March 18, 2011, and filed a claim with the OWC in November 2011. The claimant’s employer provided the claimant with benefits without an order from the date of the claimant’s accident until December 20, 2012, after the claimant refused an offer to return to work under light duty. Claimant applied for a hearing before the OWC, and at the hearing, the examiner found claimant to be entitled to continuing TTD.
Her employer still refused to provide the claimant with benefits, and the claimant requested a formal hearing. For reasons unknown, the claimant’s requested hearing was never scheduled or held. For almost a decade following her request for a formal hearing, the claimant did not renew her request or in any way further pursue a formal hearing.
After the claimant’s benefits were cut off in 2013, they still received medical care until March 3, 2015, after an IME found that the claimant was at MMI. Claimant did not file any objection to her medical benefits being stopped, but underwent two back surgeries in the following years.
In 2022, the claimant asserted a claim for payment of TTD for the period of December 2012 to present and continuing. After an evidentiary hearing in 2024, an ALJ entered an order denying Ms. Crutchfield’s claim, stating that they were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. On appeal, the CRB agreed that the claimant’s claim was untimely, but found that the applicable statute was D.C. Code § 32-1514(a), which provides the following:
“The right to compensation for disability or death under this chapter shall be barred unless a claim therefor is filed within 1 year after the injury or death. If payment of compensation has been made without an award on account of such injury or death, a claim may be filed within 1 year after the date of the last payment. Such a claim shall be filed with the Mayor. The time for filing a claim shall not begin to run until the employee or beneficiary is aware, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have been aware, of the relationship between the injury or death and the employment. Once a claim has been filed with the Mayor, no further written claims are necessary.”
The D.C. Court of Appeals divided the statute into two situations: where the employer does not voluntarily provide benefits, and those where the employer voluntarily provides benefits and then terminates them. In the latter situation, “the employee is put to a choice. She may acquiesce in the cessation, . . . or she may file a timely claim for the resumption of her compensation and trigger the necessary adjudication.
Applied to this case, the D.C. Court of Appeals concluded that the claimant did not meet the requirements of § 32-1514(a). The claimant only filed a claim for benefits in November 2011, at which point the benefits were freely given. Following the termination of indemnity benefits in December 2012 and the cessation of medical benefits in March 2015, the claimant did not file another claim for reinstatement of her benefits, only filing her claim for reinstatement of both nearly a decade later in 2022.
In so holding, the D.C. Court of Appeals established a rule for voluntary benefits: a claim filed before voluntary benefits are paid does not survive an employer providing voluntary benefits after the initial filing. In order to comply with § 32-1514(a), a claimant must file an additional claim with the OWC to contest the termination of their benefits within one year of the termination. Applied to this case, the claimant would have had to file a new claim by December 2013 to contest the cancellation of her TTD benefits, and by March 2016, to contest the cancellation of her medical benefits.
In reaching their holding, the D.C. Court of Appeals placed great importance on the negative implications of allowing claimants to renew claims years after their benefits had been terminated and emphasized the underlying purpose of § 32-1514(a): “setting a definite endpoint to the assertion of claims.”
Written by J.D. Candidate Adam T. Sundquist, reviewed by John J. Handscomb, Esq.
