2019 District of Columbia Code
Title 32 - Labor.
Chapter 15 - Workers’ Compensation.
§ 32–1504. Exclusiveness of liability and remedy.

(a) The liability of an employer prescribed in § 32-1503 shall be exclusive and in place of all liability of such employer to the employee, his legal representative, spouse or domestic partner, parents, dependents, next of kin, and anyone otherwise entitled to recover damages from such employer at law on account of such injury or death.

(b) The compensation to which an employee is entitled under this chapter shall constitute the employee’s exclusive remedy against the employer, or any collective-bargaining agent of the employer’s employees and any employee, officer, director, or agent of such employer, insurer, or collective-bargaining agent (while acting within the scope of his employment) for any illness, injury, or death arising out of and in the course of his employment; provided, that if an employer fails to secure payment of compensation as required by this chapter, an injured employee, or his legal representative in case death results from the injury, may elect to claim compensation under this chapter, or to maintain an action at law for damages on account of such injury or death. In such action the defendant may not plead as a defense that injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow servant, nor that the employee assumed the risk of his employment, nor that the injury was due to the contributory negligence of the employee.

(c) The furnishing of, or failure to furnish, insurance consultation services related to, in connection with or incidental to an applicable policy of insurance shall not subject the insurer, its agent or employees undertaking to perform such services to liability for damages from injury, death or loss occurring as a result of any act of omission in the course of such services.

(d) This section shall not apply:

(1) If the injury, loss or death occurred during the actual performance of consultation services and was caused by the active negligence of the carrier, its agent or employees which was the proximate cause of the injury, death or loss; or

(2) To any consultation services required to be performed under the provisions of a written service contract not incidental to an applicable policy of insurance.

(July 1, 1980, D.C. Law 3-77, § 5, 27 DCR 2503; Sept. 12, 2008, D.C. Law 17-231, § 31(b), 55 DCR 6758.)

1981 Ed., § 36-304.

This section is referenced in § 32-1535.

D.C. Law 17-231, in subsec. (a), substituted “spouse or domestic partner,” for “husband or wife,”.