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Sibley Memorial Hospital v. District of Columbia Department of Employment Services8/29/2002
Submitted November 9, 2000
Sibley Memorial Hospital petitions for our review of the decision of the Director of the Department of Employment Services reversing and remanding the Compensation Order denying a claim by Abdul Ghafoor for temporary total disability benefits for an injury he sustained on November 10, 1996. The Director reversed the hearing examiner's decision as not supported by substantial evidence and remanded for further findings on whether a work-related injury Mr. Ghafoor suffered in 1995 was aggravated by his commute to work, resulting in the 1996 injury. Sibley contends that the examiner's finding that the November 10, 1996 injury was a new non-work related injury was based on substantial evidence and should not have been reversed. We agree with the Director's decision that the examiner's order should be reversed, but conclude that no remand is necessary.
I. FACTUAL SUMMARY
Abdul Ghafoor, who was employed as a medical technologist with Sibley Memorial Hospital, incurred a low back injury arising out of and in the course of his employment with Sibley on August 24, 1995. After his injury, Mr. Ghafoor sought medical care, began physical therapy three times a week and was given medication. That injury caused Mr. Ghafoor to miss work intermittently, and Sibley voluntarily paid temporary total disability benefits through October 7, 1995. Thereafter, Mr. Ghafoor returned to work full-time for over a year, until November 7, 1996. According to Mr. Ghafoor, his back problems did not go away, however, and he experienced pain at work. He continued to be seen by his family physician, Dr. Ventzek, to whom he complained about the same back problems. In June of 1996, he went to see Dr. Ventzek and he was seen again at Commonwealth Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation later that year, on October 29, 1996, where they gave him a back brace and referred him for an MRI. On November 6, 1996, an MRI showed a "central disc protrusion with mild spinal stenosis L1-2." Dr. Ventzek opined that Mr. Ghafoor suffered from lumbar discogenic disk disease causally related to the 1995 work-related incident and his long drive to and from work.
The event that precipitated the present claim occurred on November 10, 1996, when Mr. Ghafoor experienced a flare-up of his lower back pain and suddenly collapsed while visiting family and friends. This incident forced him to be hospitalized, and he was advised not to return to work due to the severity of his lower back pain. Following the recommendation of orthopaedic specialists to whom he had been referred, Mr. Ghafoor again underwent physical therapy. At the recommendation of Dr. Ventzek and his treating orthopaedist, Dr. Maurath, who thought the long commute to work was contributing to his back problems, Mr. Ghafoor sought a new job which was closer to his home in Dale City, Virginia, and resigned his position with Sibley Hospital in January 1997. He then claimed temporary total disability benefits from November 8, 1996 through January 7, 1997.
In denying Mr. Ghafoor's claim for benefits, the hearing examiner found that Mr. Ghafoor sustained a non-compensable, non-work related new injury on November 10, 1996. The hearing examiner made this finding based on subsidiary findings that Mr. Ghafoor did not suffer a recurrence of the 1995 work injury on November 10, 1996, that Mr. Ghafoor's lower back injury arising from the 1995 work-related slip and fall had resolved within a matter of weeks, and that Mr. Ghafoor had successfully performed his regular work duties as a medical technologist for more than a year, with no injury-related absences, before the November 10, 1996 incident.
The Director determined that the hearing
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