Travelers Indemnity Co. of Illinois v. District of Columbia Department of Employment Services

Summary

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reviewed the Compensation Review Board’s dismissal of an employer’s appeal from an Office of Workers’ Compensation order. The court held that filing an application for a formal hearing terminated the informal proceedings and deprived the Office of Workers’ Compensation of jurisdiction to later convert the informal conference memorandum into a final order, even after the formal-hearing application was withdrawn. The court affirmed the dismissal for lack of jurisdiction and declined to reach the underlying insurance-coverage dispute.

Holdings

1. Under the governing regulations, filing an application for a formal hearing terminates the informal Office of Workers' Compensation procedures and divests that office of jurisdiction, even when the application is later withdrawn. The previously issued Memorandum of Informal Conference is therefore null and void and cannot be converted into a final order.
2. The employer's appeal was taken from a non-final order, so the Compensation Review Board properly dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
3. The Compensation Review Board did not act arbitrarily by applying its revised interpretation of the regulations to this case.

Questions Presented

1. Whether filing an application for a formal hearing after rejecting a Claims Examiner's Memorandum of Informal Conference terminates the informal Office of Workers' Compensation proceedings and divests that office of jurisdiction, even if the formal-hearing application is later withdrawn.
2. Whether the Compensation Review Board properly applied its revised interpretation of the governing regulations to this case.

Disposition

affirmed