1 Conn. App. 142 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1983
This is an appeal1 by the defendant hospital (defendant) from a judgment of the compensation review division reversing the finding and award of the workers' compensation commissioner. The commissioner dismissed the plaintiff's claim for benefits; the review division reversed and awarded benefits. In an amended and consolidated finding and award, the commissioner found the following facts which are material to this appeal. In January, 1977, the plaintiff, a patient care technician employed by the defendant *144
hospital, injured her back while supporting a patient who had fallen out of bed. At about 7 a.m. the next morning, at the completion of her work shift, she went to the office of the defendant's personnel health physician, Nathaniel Selleck, and told him that she had injured her back the previous night. Selleck did not examine her, but looked at her and told her that she needed a psychiatrist. After this lifting incident, during January, she began to develop back pains and problems with her left leg. On January 27, 1977, she visited another physician, William Sinton, who treated her for back and leg problems and who, on March 22, 1977, admitted her to the defendant hospital where she remained until discharged on May 5, 1977. She has been unable to work since March 22, 1977. She did not give the defendant written notice of claim for compensation within one year of her injury as required by General Statutes
The commissioner concluded that the plaintiff had not established the furnishing of medical care within the meaning of General Statutes
We first address a claim of the defendant on appeal which requires some further procedural history. The review division's final finding and award was preceded by two remands by it to the commissioner for further factual findings. Thus, there were, in all, three findings and awards by the commissioner and three findings and awards by the review division. The plaintiff filed a formal appeal to the review division only after the commissioner's first finding and award. The defendant argues that once the review division remanded the case *145 to the commissioner it lost jurisdiction over the matter and the plaintiff was required to file a new appeal after each new finding and award of the commissioner.2 We disagree.
It is clear that the purpose of the review division's first two remands was to require the commissioner to supplement and clarify his findings and awards so that the review division could make a final decision on the merits of the appeal. General Statutes
Since the plaintiff did not give to the defendant the written notice of her injury required by General Statutes
In reaching its conclusion, however, the review division improperly added to the facts found by the commissioner. The commissioner found in essence that at the end of her shift following the injury to her back the plaintiff went to the office of the defendant's personnel health physician and told him that she had injured her back; he did not examine her but looked at her and told her she needed a psychiatrist.4 The review division, in its finding and award, elaborated on this somewhat spare finding as follows: "At the time, the plaintiff *147
told Dr. Selleck her complaints due to the claimed injury, and he told her that sometimes with a physical injury that is associated with pain, seeing a psychiatrist would help or could help. Dr. Selleck advised the plaintiff that she needed a psychiatrist." This addition and elaboration, which was not done on the basis of additional evidence or testimony before the review division; see General Statutes
We are left, then, with the facts as found by the commissioner. We conclude, nonetheless, that those facts constitute the furnishing of medical care within the meaning of General Statutes
General Statutes
Here the plaintiff, having sustained an injury which arose out of and during the course of her employment, went to the office provided by the defendant for its employees' health and reported the injury to the doctor there. This provided the defendant with the requisite knowledge of the injury. Selleck's status as the defendant's personnel health physician is not questioned on this record. Thus, the defendant had provided a full-time staff physician. The fact that Selleck's response to the plaintiff's notice of her injury may have been unwise, cavalier or even flippant, is of no moment. It is of moment, however, that he was "a competent physician [provided] to attend" the plaintiff; General Statutes
Kulis v. Moll, supra, on which the defendant relies, does not control here. There the court held that the employer's act of driving his employee to the hospital did not constitute the furnishing of medical care. Id., 107. The case turned on the fact, however, that there *149 was no evidence to indicate whether the plaintiff, whom the defendant found on the ground, had suffered a sudden illness, an accident or an external assault before the defendant drove him to the hospital; thus, the defendant had no indication of his potential exposure until much later when his opportunity for investigation had passed. Id., 111-12. In this case, the plaintiff's statement to Selleck gave sufficient indication of a work-related injury with ample opportunity for prompt investigation.
Indeed, this case is much closer to Gesmundo v. Bush, supra. There the employee's supervisor, having received oral notice of the employee's injury, told him to see a doctor who attended injured employees of the employer. The doctor made an initial diagnosis and gave the employee instructions to follow which were unsuccessful. The employee subsequently consulted other doctors. The court held that "[t]he examination by the doctor and the giving of instructions to the plaintiff constituted `medical treatment' as those words are used in the statute. To `furnish' means to `provide' or supply.' Webster, Third New International Dictionary. That the plaintiff saw fit to pay the doctor does not alter the situation; it is the fact that the defendant, through its superintendent, made provision for medical treatment that makes unnecessary the formal notice." Gesmundo v. Bush, supra, 612. Similarly, the fact that Selleck, having been informed of the injury, declined to examine the plaintiff and instead told her to see a psychiatrist must be taken as a form of medical treatment; "it is the fact that the defendant, through its [personnel health office], made provision for medical treatment that makes unnecessary the formal notice." Id.
There is no error.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.