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Washington Post v. District of Columbia Department of Employment Services6/3/2004
Employment Services endorsed the examiner's description of Dr. Levitt's opinion as "speculative and partial." In justification of that characterization, the Director observed that notwithstanding his opinion on the lack of causation, Dr. Levitt had recommended that Reynolds avoid jobs requiring frequent squatting and bending. The Director also noted that Dr. Levitt had said that Reynolds' injury in September 1995 was one of "two injury events in question that contributed to his current knee pathology."
III.
The Washington Post contends that the Director erred in affirming the examiner's ruling that its evidence was insufficient to rebut the statutory presumption of causation. The ruling "presents a question of law - what constitutes sufficient evidence - that we review de novo." Safeway Stores, Inc., 806 A.2d at 1219.
We agree with petitioner. Under this court's precedents, Dr. Levitt's reports and testimony indisputably constituted "substantial medical evidence - as opposed to unequivocal medical evidence - [sufficient] to rebut the statutory presumption." Safeway Stores, Inc., 806 A.2d at 1221 (reversing Director's determination that an opinion of an independent medical examiner retained by the employer did not overcome the presumption of compensability). We are at a loss to discern why the hearing examiner and the Director thought otherwise or why they dismissed Dr. Levitt's opinion on the absence of causation as "speculative and partial." It was neither. Dr. Levitt's professional qualifications were unquestioned. He based his opinion on his personal examination of Reynolds and his review of all the pertinent medical records. The doctor's opinion was firm and unambiguous. He supported it with detailed reasons. His reports and testimony were neither superficial nor implausible. Certainly they were "specific and comprehensive enough," Ferreira, 531 A.2d at 655, for the purpose at hand.
As purported justification for rejecting the sufficiency of Dr. Levitt's opinion, the Director cited only the doctor's recommendation that Reynolds avoid frequent squatting and bending and his statement that the September 1995 incident was one of "two injury events in question that contributed to his current knee pathology." The recommendation is, however, consistent with Dr. Levitt's view that Reynolds indeed was suffering from a degenerative knee condition, though that condition was not attributable to or aggravated by his injury. As to the sentence excerpted from Dr. Levitt's final report, it is infelicitously phrased, but to treat it as anything more, as undermining or qualifying Dr. Levitt's opinion, is - beyond doubt - to take it out of context and misread it. " he inconsistency, if any, was minor, as the doctor unequivocally stated his opinion that the work injury was not the precipitating cause in this case. . . ." Safeway Stores, Inc., 806 A.2d at 1220.
In Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth. (WMATA) v. District of Columbia Dep't of Employment Servs., 827 A.2d 35 (D.C. 2003), we held that a doctor's opinion was insufficient to rebut the presumption of causation. In that case, however, unlike in this one, the doctor failed to review the pertinent medical records; he based his opinion on a factual error that reading the records would have prevented, and he then made a critical admission in his deposition that further undermined his opinion. See id. at 42-44. For those specific reasons we had no difficulty concluding that the doctor's testimony did "not amount to 'such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion'; and not 'specific and comprehensive enough to sever the potential connection between [the employee's] disabili
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