267 Conn. 583 | Conn. | 2004
Opinion
The sole issue in this certified appeal is whether there was a reasonable basis in the facts found for the workers’ compensation commissioner to have determined that the plaintiff had not met his burden of proving that he was injured during the course of his employment. The defendants, the borough of Naugatuck and its insurer, the Hartford Insurance Group, appeal, following our grant of certification, from the judgment of the Appellate Court reversing the decision of the compensation review board (board) in their favor. The defendants claim that the Appellate Court improperly determined that the workers’ compensation commissioner for the fifth district (commissioner) was compelled to draw the inference that the plaintiff police officer, Michael Daubert, was injured during the course of his employment, once the commissioner had determined that the plaintiff was on duty and driving his police vehicle in Naugatuck at the time he collided
The plaintiff filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits and the defendants denied compensability. After an extended hearing, the commissioner dismissed the claim, finding that the plaintiff had not established compensability. The plaintiff appealed to the board, which affirmed the commissioner’s decision. The plaintiff then appealed to the Appellate Court, which reversed the decision of the board and remanded the case to the board with direction to reverse the decision of the commissioner. Id., 613. This certified appeal followed.
Certain facts, which are undisputed by the parties, are as follows. At approximately 1:46 a.m., on January 26,1997, the plaintiff was an employee of the Naugatuck police department, and was on duty in his cruiser when he was involved in a motor vehicle accident in which his cruiser struck a tree. All of the other facts, however, were disputed by the parties. The plaintiff claimed before the commissioner that, while he was searching for a reported reckless driver, his cruiser had struck the tree when he failed to negotiate a sharp curve in the road. The plaintiff also claimed that, as a result of the impact, he had sustained various injuries, including loss of consciousness. The defendants denied that the
The commissioner held fourteen hearings over the course of two years, received testimony from numerous witnesses for both sides, and viewed dozens of exhibits, including a videotaped narration by the plaintiff of the events that immediately preceded the collision. The plaintiff testified and introduced evidence and expert witness testimony in support of his claim that his injuries were compensable. The defendants presented their own witnesses and evidence, including expert witness testimony, which disputed the plaintiffs rendition of how the collision had occurred, what had happened in the collision’s aftermath, and the nature of the plaintiffs alleged injuries.
The commissioner dismissed the plaintiffs claim for benefits on the ground that the plaintiff had not met his burden of proving that the collision occurred as he had alleged. This determination was based on the commissioner’s specific findings of fact, which can be summarized as follows: (1) on January 26, 1997, at approximately 1:46 a.m., the plaintiff, while on duty as a sergeant for the Naugatuck police department, was involved in a motor vehicle accident wherein his police cruiser struck a tree; (2) the plaintiffs explanation that
The board affirmed the commissioner’s determination, on the ground that the plaintiff had not proven, as he was required to do, that the collision giving rise to his injuries took place while he was reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment or doing something incidental to it. Specifically, the board stated that “where a [plaintiff] contends that an accident occurred in a specific manner, and the trial commissioner finds the [plaintiffs] explanation to lack credibility, we cannot say that the trial commissioner must find the accident to be compensable merely because it occurred while the [plaintiff] was on duty. Certainly, in the instant case it is unclear whether the [plaintiff] met the third
The Appellate Court disagreed. That court reasoned that the commissioner’s finding that the plaintiff was on duty as a police officer while he was driving in his police cruiser and hit the tree, mandated the additional finding that he was injured “while he was reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment,” and that the commissioner’s determination “that the plaintiff had not met his burden of proving that the accident occurred as he had alleged was not a reasonable inference to be drawn from the subordinate facts.” Daubert v. Naugatuck, supra, 71 Conn. App. 610.
On appeal to this court, the defendants claim that the Appellate Court improperly determined that the commissioner’s finding that the plaintiff was on duty and in his police cruiser when the collision occurred mandated the additional finding that the injuries occurred while he was reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment or doing something incidental to it. We agree with the defendants.
“It is well settled that, because the purpose of the act is to compensate employees for injuries without fault by imposing a form of strict liability on employers, to recover for an injury under the act. a plaintiff must prove that the injury is causally connected to the
It is useful to note what is not at issue in this case. Not at issue is that the plaintiff proved that his claimed injuries “arose out of [his] employment”; id., 417; and that he proved the first two of the three prongs of the requirement that the injuries occurred “in the course of [his] employment”; id.; because these elements relate to the time, place and circumstances of the injury, and to whether the injury occurred “within the period of the employment . . . [and] at a place the employee may reasonably be . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 418. The defendants do not dispute any of these elements, and the finding that the plaintiff was on duty in his cruiser when the collision occurred satisfies those elements. Also not at issue is whether the plaintiff intentionally drove his cruiser into the tree. The defendants did not claim that to be the case, and they specifically disavowed any such claim in oral argument before this court.
We conclude that the commissioner’s finding, that the plaintiff did not prove that his injuries had occurred while he was reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment or doing something incidental to it, must stand. As the board noted, there may be instances when, without specific evidence, a commissioner may infer from all of the circumstances that an injury occurred in the course of employment. When, however, as in the present case, the plaintiff specifically claims and
The question of whether a plaintiffs injuries resulted from an incident that occurred in the course of his employment is a separate and distinct question from whether his alleged injuries arose out of his employment. Kolomiets v. Syncor International Corp., 252 Conn. 261, 266, 746 A.2d 743 (2000). The commissioner’s finding that the collision arose out of the plaintiffs employment did not, in the circumstances of the present case, give rise to a mandatory inference that the collision occurred while the plaintiff was performing work-related duties and, therefore, that the collision occurred in the course of his employment.
The plaintiff argues, however, that if we uphold the decisions of the commissioner and the board, we will have assigned to the plaintiff the burden of disproving the defendants’ evidence that he deliberately collided with the tree and that this shifting of the burden of proof would be in derogation of his due process rights. We disagree. As we have noted, the defendants do not claim that the plaintiff intentionally caused the collision. In this connection, we agree with the board that
The plaintiff also claims that, if we were to reverse the Appellate Court’s judgment, it would violate his right to procedural due process of law because it would, in effect, mandate a finding that he deliberately collided with the tree, and such a finding would be impermissible because the defendants did not plead wilful misconduct as an affirmative defense. We reject this claim for the same reasons that we rejected the plaintiffs claim regarding a purported shift in the burden of proof.
The judgment of the Appellate Court is reversed and the case is remanded to that court with direction to affirm the decision of the compensation review board.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
We granted the defendants’ petition for certification for appeal limited to the following questions: “1. Did the Appellate Court [improperly substitute its own factual findings for those of the workers’ compensation commissioner?” and “2. Did the Appellate Court [im]properly reverse the decision of the workers’ compensation commissioner or should the Appellate Court have remanded the issues?” Daubert v. Naugatuck, 261 Conn. 942, 943, 808 A.2d 1135 (2002). Because we answer the first question in the affirmative, it, is not necessary to reach the second question.
Thus, we are not persuaded by the Appellate Court’s reliance on the commissioner’s use of the word “accident” in his findings, for that court’s conclusion that the facts found compelled the inference that the plaintiff was injured in the course of his employment. Daubert v. Naugatuck, supra, 71 Conn. App. 613. First, we read the commissioner’s use of the word as merely a synonym for “collision.” Second, that discussion took place in the