242 Conn. 570 | Conn. | 1997
Lead Opinion
Opinion
The dispositive issue in this certified appeal is whether, under the circumstances of this case, the limitation period within which the plaintiff was required to file his workers’ compensation claim began to run before he actually was aware that the heart attack he had suffered was work-related.
The relevant facts, as found by the commissioner, are set forth in the Appellate Court opinion. “Prior to November 12, 1982, the plaintiff was employed by the
“On November 12,1982, the plaintiff sustained a heart attack after working the entire day on scaffolding using a heavy grinding machine. The plaintiff has not worked since that date. The plaintiff did not relate the heart attack to job stress until September, 1984, when he read in a newspaper about a similar case. On September 27, 1984, the plaintiff filed a notice of claim that identified his injury as the November 12, 1982 heart attack while in the defendant’s employ. On October 22, 1984, the defendant filed a notice contesting the claim on the grounds that (1) the heart attack did not arise out of the employment and (2) the claim was barred by the (General Statutes [Rev. to 1981]) § 31-294
“The board reversed the commissioner’s decision and concluded that the plaintiffs claim is barred by § 31-294. The board held that a heart attack is an accidental injury and not an injury that is the direct result of repetitive trauma and that notice of claim for a heart attack must be filed within one year of the attack to be timely.” Discuillo v. Stone & Webster, 43 Conn. App. 224, 225-26, 682 A.2d 145 (1996).
The Appellate Court, relying on its interpretation of our decision in Crochiere v. Board of Education, 227 Conn. 333, 630 A.2d 1027 (1993), affirmed the decision of the board. The Appellate Court concluded that, even if a heart attack was an injury that was the result of a repetitive trauma, as opposed to an accidental injury, the one year filing limitation of § 31-294 automatically applied to the former type of claim as well as to the latter. Discuillo v. Stone & Webster, supra, 43 Conn. App. 226. The Appellate Court further concluded that,
The plaintiffs principal claim is that the Appellate Court improperly determined that the limitation period on his claim effectively began to run on the last day of his employment, rather than on the date that he became aware that his injury was work-related.
The workers’ compensation scheme explicitly provides for three categories of compensable injury: (1) accidental injury; (2) repetitive trauma injury; and (3) occupational disease. See General Statutes (Rev. to
The plaintiff argues that, given this statutory silence, the “humanitarian purpose” of the workers’ compensation system is best effectuated by judicial creation of
The fundamental problem with the plaintiffs position is that it ignores the fact that the workers’ compensation system in Connecticut is derived exclusively from statute. We have previously observed that the workers’ compensation commission, like any administrative body, “must act strictly within its statutory authority .... It cannot modify, abridge, or otherwise change the statutory provisions under which it acquires authority unless the statutes expressly grant it that power.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Figueroa v. C & S Ball Bearing, supra, 237 Conn. 4, citing Castro v. Viera, 207 Conn. 420, 428, 541 A.2d 1216 (1988). A commissioner may exercise jurisdiction to hear a claim only “under the precise circumstances and in the manner particularly prescribed by the enabling legislation.” Heiser v. Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., 150 Conn. 563, 565, 192 A.2d 44 (1963); see also Kinney v. State, 213 Conn. 54, 60, 566 A.2d 670 (1989). “[I]t is settled law that the commissioner’s jurisdiction is confined by the [Workers’ Compensation Act] and limited by its provisions.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Gagnon v. United Aircraft Corp., 159 Conn. 302, 305, 268 A.2d 660 (1970).
We therefore conclude that, for a commissioner to have jurisdiction over a claim, that claim must fit within the existing jurisdictional provisions of § 31-294. In other words, for purposes of jurisdiction, every cognizable claim must be considered as stemming from either an “accident” or an “occupational disease” as those terms are used in § 31-294.
In this regard, we first note that the plaintiffs heart attack does not closely resemble an “occupational disease.” The term “occupational disease” is specifically defined in § 31-275 (11) as including “any disease peculiar to the occupation in which the employee was engaged and due to causes in excess of the ordinary hazards of employment as such . . . .”
In the present case, the workplace circumstances that allegedly caused the plaintiffs heart attack cannot be said to be “peculiar to” his occupation as a painter. The physical stresses he describes — having to lift, carry, and use heavy pieces of equipment — are present in many jobs involving manual labor. Likewise, the mental stress created by close supervision and productivity pressure is common throughout the working world. Neither type of stress is “distinctively associated with” the plaintiffs particular occupation as a painter. Thus, it cannot be said that the plaintiffs heart attack resulted from an occupational disease because his job and experiences as a painter were no more likely to cause his heart attack “than would other kinds of employment carried on under the same conditions.” Madeo v. I. Dibner & Bro., Inc., 121 Conn. 664, 667, 186 A. 616 (1936); see Crochiere v. Board of Education, supra, 227 Conn. 353 (music teacher could not claim mental injury as occupational disease where injury based upon false charges of sexual misconduct by student, because such allegations “could arise in numerous occupational settings”); Hansen v. Gordon, supra, 221 Conn. 37 (hepatitis was occupational disease where dental hygienist was “at a particular risk of contracting [hepatitis] because of [her] contact with blood and other secretions”); cf. Zaleta v. Fairfield, 38 Conn. App. 1, 7-8, 658 A.2d 166, cert. denied, 234 Conn. 917, 661 A.2d 98 (1995) (hyper
In conjunction with our conclusion that the plaintiffs heart attack, even if stemming from repetitive trauma, does not resemble an occupational disease, we also conclude that the plaintiffs particular claim does resemble an accidental injury. Section 31-275 (8) does not define the term “accidental injury” specifically except to note that such an injury must “be definitely located as to the time when and the place where the accident occurred . . . .” See footnote 5 of this opinion. Although the plaintiffs injury is localizable as to time and place, we acknowledge that a stress-induced heart attack does not necessarily coincide with the everyday usage of the word “accident.” Nonetheless, we do not think it is unreasonable to conclude that for the purposes of § 31-294, a series of repetitive workplace traumas can have the unintended result of causing an “accidental” injury to an employee. We thus conclude that labeling the plaintiffs heart attack as an accidental injury for jurisdictional purposes is appropriate under the facts of this case, because, of the two choices available under § 31-294, the plaintiffs heart attack more closely resembles an accidental injury than an occupational disease.
Furthermore, § 31-294 does not contain any provision for tolling the filing period for a claim of accidental
Neither § 31-294 nor any antecedent statute, however, has ever contained any language so tolling the running of the limitation period for a claim based on accidental injury. Indeed, our precedent explicitly holds that, given the absence of such language, the limitation period for a claim based on accidental injury is not tolled simply because the claimant is unaware that he or she has suffered a compensable injury. In Gavigan v. Visiting Nurses Assn., 125 Conn. 290, 4 A.2d 923 (1939), the plaintiff suffered a fall at work in 1933, but she did not visit a doctor until 1938, when she experienced severe back pain. Id., 291. The plaintiff was then informed that her fall five years earlier had fractured her coccyx. The plaintiff presented a compensation claim shortly thereafter. Id. This court held that the commissioner properly refused to consider the plaintiffs claim. Id., 293. The applicable jurisdictional statute at the time provided, as it does now; see footnote 3 of this opinion; that claims of accidental injury had to be filed “within
Because the legislature has not acted to change the Gavigan rule in the fifty years since that case was decided, we presume that the legislature acquiesces in our interpretation. See Angelsea Productions, Inc. v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, 236 Conn. 681, 693-94, 674 A.2d 1300 (1996). Accordingly, our conclusion that the plaintiffs injury in the present case is accidental for purposes of § 31-294 compels the conclusion that the limitation period on his claim began to run on the date of his heart attack, even though he was unaware that his injury was work-related.
In the present case, the plaintiff never returned to work after his heart attack. Consequently, the date of his heart attack is also his last date of exposure to the relevant stresses. Because the plaintiff did not file his claim within one year of that date, we conclude that the commissioner in this case improperly exercised jurisdiction over the plaintiffs claim.
The judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed.
In this opinion NORCOTT, PALMER and PETERS, Js., concurred.
We granted the plaintiffs petition for certification to appeal limited to the following issue: “When does the statute of limitations begin to run in a workers’ compensation case in which the plaintiff suffers a work-related heart attack but does not learn that the heart attack is work related until two years thereafter?” Discuillo v. Stone & Webster, 239 Conn. 953, 688 A.2d 325 (1996).
The defendants in this ease are Stone and Webster, Aetna Casualty and Surety Company and the second injury fund. For purposes of this appeal, we will refer to Stone and Webster as the defendant.
At the time of the plaintiffs injury, General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-294 provided in relevant part: “No proceedings for compensation under the provisions of this chapter shall be maintained unless a written notice of claim for compensation is given within one year from the date of the accident or within three years from the first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, as the case may be, which caused the personal injury, provided, if death has resulted within two years from the date of the accident or first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, a dependent or dependents, or the legal representative of the deceased employee, may make claim for compensation within the two-year period or within one year from the date of death, whichever is later. . . . For the purposes of this section, ‘manifestation of a symptom’ means its manifestation to an employee
All references herein to § 31-294 are to the 1981 revision of the statute. The preceding language is presently codified, with minor technical changes, a1 General Statutes § 31-294c (a).
See footnote 1 of this opinion for the certified question. Subsequent to certification, the plaintiff, pursuant to Practice Book § 4140, presented as an additional issue for review the adverse ruling of the board that his heart attack was an accidental injury as a matter of law. Given our conclusion on the certified issue that, even if the plaintiffs heart attack is properly classified as a repetitive trauma injury, he has failed to bring his compensation claim in a timely manner, we decline to address this issue.
At the time of the plaintiff’s injury, General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-275 (8) provided: “ ‘Personal injury,’ or ‘injury,’ as the same is used in this chapter, shall be construed to include, in addition to accidental injury which may be definitely located as to the time when and the place where the accident occurred, an injury to an employee which is causally connected wi1h his employment and is the direct result of repetitive trauma or repetitive acts incident to such employment, and occupational disease as herein defined.”
All references herein to § 31-275 (8) are to the 1981 revision of the statute. The preceding language is presently codified, with minor technical changes, at General Statutes § 31-275 (16) (A).
See footnote 3 of this opinion for the text of § 31-294. This situation originated in 1947, when the legislature first expanded the list of compensable injuries to include repetitive trauma claims in addition to the preexisting categories of accidental injury and occupational disease. See Public Acts 1947, No. 191. The legislature failed, however, to create a corresponding limitation period for repetitive trauma claims to complement those that already existed for accidental and occupational injury claims. This statutory gap has remained unfilled to the present day.
There is no legislative history that illuminates the reason, if any, that the drafters of No. 191 of the 1947 Public Acts did not create an explicit limitation period for the bringing of a repetitive trauma claim. Likewise, there is no indication of what those drafters intended the limitation period for a claim of repetitive trauma to be. In light, however, of the principle that the legislature is presumed to have intended to create a consistent body of law; Cagiva North America, Inc. v. Schenk, 239 Conn. 1, 8, 680 A.2d 964 (1996); it is reasonable to infer that the legislature intended that the then new repetitive trauma claims be folded into one of the preexisting jurisdictional categories. See footnote 6 of this opinion.
Of course, one could theoretically argue that, because there is no explicit filing period for repetitive trauma claims in § 31-294, such claims may be filed at any time. The plaintiff does not, however, raise such an argument. In any event, we are not inclined to interpret our workers’ compensation scheme to reach such a bizarre result. Cf. Hall v. Gilbert & Bennett Mfg. Co., 241 Conn. 282, 302, 675 A.2d 1051 (1997).
At the time of the plaintiff siryury, § 31-275 (11) provided: “ ‘Occupational disease’ includes any disease peculiar to the occupation in which the employee was engaged and due to causes in excess of the ordinary hazards of employment as such and includes any disease due to or attributable to exposure to or contact with any radioactive material by an employee in the course of his employment.”
The preceding language is presently codified, with minor technical changes, at General Statutes § 31-275 (15).
We emphasize that our characterization of the plaintiffs injury is based upon the specific facts of this particular case. We therefore disagree with the Appellate Court to the extent that it suggested that repetitive trauma injuries must automatically be treated as accidental injuries for purposes of § 31-294. Discuillo v. Stone & Webster, supra, 43 Conn. App. 226-27. We also disavow any implication that might be drawn from Crochiere v. Board of Education, supra, 227 Conn. 354, to that effect. We leave open, however, the question as to what factual predicate, if any, would support a conclusion that a repetitive trauma injury should be treated as an occupational disease for jurisdictional purposes. Likewise, we do not decide that all heart attacks derived from repetitive trauma must be considered accidental for purposes of § 31-294, but we leave open the question of what factual predicate, if any, would compel a different conclusion.
We have adopted this general rule out of recognition that, in many cases involving repetitive trauma, the very nature of the injury will make it impossible to demarcate a specific date of injury. Thus, out of necessity, some other clear threshold had to be established as the start of the applicable limitation period. The last day of exposure to the relevant trauma is a logical choice, as the process of injury from a repetitive trauma is ongoing until that point. See, e.g., Pick v. Pratt & Whitney, 4 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 163, 164 (1988). We emphasize, however, that the fact that we properly may fill in the interstices of § 31-294 in order to give it practical effect does not mean that we may rewrite the statute fundamentally, as the plaintiff would have us do.
We also note that, although the last day of a claimant’s exposure to a repetitive trauma often coincides with the last day of the claimant’s employment; Borent v. State, 10 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 219, 220 (1992); the former is the sole germane date for calculating the limitation period on a claim. As the Appellate Court in Discuillo v. Stone & Webster, supra, 43 Conn. App. 225, implicitly recognized, our dicta in Crochiere v. Board of Education, supra, 227 Conn. 354, to the effect that the final date of a claimant’s employment has independent significance, was an incorrect application of board precedent.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting. This case raises a pivotal issue under Connecticut’s workers’ compensation law with respect to the limitation period within which an employee must file his or her claim for a work-related
There are three classes of compensable injuries under our workers’ compensation law: (1) accidental injury; (2) occupational disease; and (3) repetitive trauma injury. General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-275.
The majority recognizes that the legislature clearly intended that repetitive trauma injury be recognized as a third category of compensable injury; General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-275 (8); but then concludes through judicial fiat that it will not foster this independent recognition. Rather, the court today decides for the first time “that the terms ‘accident’ and ‘occupational disease’ as they are used in § 31-294 must be read broadly enough so that even an injury that is defined as stemming from repetitive trauma pursuant to § 31-275 (8) may nonetheless be deemed to fall into one of the two extant jurisdictional categories [for the purpose of applying a limitation period], as appropriate to the specific facts of each particular claim.” The conclusion that a case specific determination must be made will undoubtedly create additional litigation and it will also have a devastating impact on injured employees because of uncertainty in the law and the resulting increase in litigation costs. I disagree with the majority’s analysis and its conclusion.
In this case, the majority imposes a one year limitation for the plaintiffs repetitive trauma claim because
In my view, a repetitive trauma injury has its own legislative identity and cannot be merged into the classification of an accidental injury or an occupational disease, as the majority attempts to do. I conclude, for the reasons set forth herein, that the notice for a repetitive trauma injury must be filed within one year from the date of the employee’s last exposure to the work-related repetitive trauma, or the last day worked, whichever is later, but that the limitation period is subject to a “discovery” rule. The discovery rule tolls the time by which notice of the injury must be filed until the employee discovers, or should have discovered through the exercise of reasonable care, that he or she has been injured and that the injury is causally connected to his or her employment.
The following relevant facts in this case are not in dispute. Prior to November 12, 1982, the plaintiff was employed as a painter by the named defendant, Stone and Webster (defendant).
On November 12,1982, before the work day was over, the plaintiff began to experience chest pains as he was cleaning his equipment. When he walked to his car to drive home, the chest pains became worse and he sat in his car and waited for them to subside. The next morning he was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital in New London and was treated for a heart attack by Robert Linden, an internist. Linden’s discharge summary noted that the plaintiff had the risk factors for a heart attack because of smoking and a family history of heart disease. The doctor’s records did not indicate that the plaintiff suffered from stress on the job.
The plaintiff testified that he did not relate his heart attack to job stress until September, 1984, approximately two years after the heart attack, when he read a newspaper story depicting a person who had suffered a heart attack that resulted from job stress. Consequently, on September 27, 1984, the plaintiff filed a notice of claim that identified his November 12, 1982 heart attack as resulting from his employment with the defendant. The plaintiff was subsequently examined by Martin J. Frank, a board certified cardiologist, and he confirmed that physical and emotional stress on the job was a significant and precipitating factor causing the plaintiffs heart attack. The defendant filed with the
The commissioner hearing this case found that the heart attack suffered by the plaintiff was caused by physical and emotional job stress, as well as arteriosclerotic heart disease. The commissioner also concluded that the plaintiffs claim was not time barred under § 31-294 because he found that the plaintiff had filed his notice of claim within one year of the date on which the plaintiff understood that there was a causal relationship between his heart attack and his work-related stress. The compensation review board (review board) concluded that the plaintiffs claim was untimely and it reversed the commissioner and dismissed the case. The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the decision of the review board. Discuillo v. Stone & Webster, 43 Conn. App. 224, 227, 682 A.2d 145 (1996). This appeal followed.
I
Although the majority does not reach the issue, I first resolve that the injury in this case — the plaintiffs heart attack — was caused by work-related repetitive trauma. “Our standard of review of the [review] board’s determination is clear. [T]he [review board’s] hearing of an appeal from the commissioner is not a de novo hearing of the facts. Although the [review board] may take additional material evidence, this is proper only if it is shown to its satisfaction that good reasons exist as to why the evidence was not presented to the commissioner. Otherwise, it is obliged to hear the appeal on the record and not retry the facts. . . . [T]he power and duty of determining the facts rests on the commissioner, the
The commissioner’s finding in the present case that the plaintiffs injury was primarily the result of repetitive trauma is consistent with the evidence in the record. There was no evidence indicating that on the date of the heart attack the plaintiff was subjected to any unusual excitement or overexertion, or that he was involved in an “accident.” More importantly, the commissioner found that Frank, the plaintiffs cardiologist, “was of the opinion that the job stress [that the plaintiff] experienced was a significant factor in the cause of the [heart attack]” and “that [the plaintiff] had an ongoing cardiac disease prior to November 12, 1982, but that the stress of work probably was the precipitating factor causing [the plaintiffs heart attack].” The commissioner indicated that “[t]he doctor described the stress as both physical and emotional. He believed that the combination of long hours of holding a grinding machine while working on a scaffold coupled with the mental pressure of supervisors produced the stress that precipitated the [heart attack]. ” The commissioner credited this medical opinion, and discounted the opinion of Linden, the plaintiffs treating physician at the time of the heart attack. The commissioner’s finding that the work-related repetitive trauma was a significant and precipitating factor causing the plaintiffs heart attack must stand.
II
The majority concludes that “even if the plaintiffs heart attack is properly classified as a repetitive trauma
The majority’s conclusion that a repetitive trauma injury could be classified as an accidental injury for the purpose of determining when the employee must give notice is contrary to the statutory definition of an accidental injury. An accidental injury is clearly defined as an injury “definitely located as to the time when and the place where the accident occurred . . . .” General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-275 (8); see also Linnane v. Aetna Brewing Co., 91 Conn. 158, 162, 99 A. 507 (1916) (“An accidental bodily injury may ... be defined as a localized abnormal condition of the living body directly and contemporaneously caused by accident; and an accident may be defined as an unlooked-for mishap or an untoward event or condition not expected. The concurrence of accident and injury is a condition precedent to the right to compensation.” [Emphasis added.]); Keegan v. Aetna Life & Casualty Ins. Co., 42 Conn. App. 803, 808, 682 A.2d 132, cert. denied, 239 Conn. 942, 686 A.2d 120 (1996) (stating, with respect to an accidental injury, that “the employee knows the
Although I do not agree with the majority’s analysis or its conclusion, I agree that there is a one year limitation period for repetitive trauma claims. We made that abundantly clear in Crochiere v. Board of Education, 227 Conn. 333, 348, 630 A.2d 1027 (1993). But that one year period is measured, in the first instance, from “the last day of exposure to the work-related incidents of repetitive trauma, or the last day worked, whichever is later.” Id., 354.
As previously noted, the limitations period for repetitive trauma claims is subject to a discovery rule — that is, the one year period is tolled until the employee discovers, or should have discovered through the exercise of reasonable care, that he or she has been injured and that the injury is causally connected to his or her employment. The review board has held so for a period spanning the last ten years. See, e.g., O’Leary v. New Britain, 3 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 108, 110 (1986); Boutin v. Industrial Components, 4 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 19, 23 (1987); Dorsett v. General Dynamics Corp., 8 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 77, 79, aff'd, 23 Conn. App. 827, 584 A.2d 484 (1990) (per curiam), cert. denied, 218 Conn. 901, 588 A.2d 1076 (1991); Edmounds v. Machlett Laboratories, 9 Conn.
In Boutin, a case involving an employee who suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome because of work-related repetitive trauma, the review board reversed the ruling of the commissioner below. The commissioner who conducted the hearing ruled that the employee’s claim was time barred because she had not sent a notice of claim to her employer within one year of the 1980 surgery on her arm, the time by which notice must be sent in accidental injury cases. In Boutin, the employee’s neurosurgeon, approximately one year after surgery on her right arm, “informed the claimant for the first time that the carpal tunnel condition in both arms was due to her work.” Boutin v. Industrial Components, supra, 4 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 20. The employee filed a claim within weeks after being informed of this connection to her work. Id. The then chairperson of the workers’ compensation commission, John Arcudi, wrote in Boutin that “[w]e would need to hold that [the] claimant’s remedy expired before she could know that she was injured in order to affirm the ruling below. Such a determination offends equity and logic.” Id., 21. Consequently, Arcudi articulated a logical rule: “[T]he limitation period [for repetitive trauma injuries] is not triggered until the employee knew or should have known that he has a disabling condition arising from the employment.” Id., 23. Boutin points out that this rule of law is consistent with the development of workers’ compensation law in Connecticut, and relies on this court’s reasoning in Bremner v. Marc Eidlitz & Son, Inc., 118 Conn. 666, 174 A. 172 (1934).
The discovery rule adopted by the review board should control based upon several tenets of statutory construction. “We accord great deference to the construction given to § 31-294 by the commissioner and the review [board] because they are both charged with its enforcement.” Crochiere v. Board of Education, supra, 227 Conn. 354, citing Police Dept. v. State Board of Labor Relations, 225 Conn. 297, 300, 622 A.2d 1005 (1993) (“[o]ur review of an agency’s decision on questions of law is limited by the traditional deference that we have accorded to that agency’s interpretation of the acts it is charged with enforcing”); Board of Education v. State Board of Labor Relations, 217 Conn. 110, 120, 584 A.2d 1172 (1991) (“[t]he agency’s practical construc
I recognize that in September, 1996, a majority of the review board reversed its long-standing discovery rule for repetitive trauma claims by overruling Boutin. See Dorsey v. United Technologies Corp./Norden Systems, 15 Conn. Workers’ Comp. Rev. Op. 447, 450 (1996). In Dorsey, however, chairperson Jesse M. Frankl dissented with respect to the reversal of the rule set forth in Boutin.
As indicated by the dissent in Dorsey, it is not that much of a leap to apply the legislative policy underlying
The previously long-standing rule applied in the Boutin decision, and as argued for in the dissent in Dorsey, is in line with the liberal thrust of the workers’ compensation law in this state. Indeed, in Muldoon v. Homestead Insulation Co., 231 Conn. 469, 483, 650 A.2d 1240 (1994), this court recently reaffirmed that the act is to be liberally construed — and that case included the four justices who comprise the majority on this panel. That is a construction that we have consistently applied over the years. See, e.g., Dubois v. General Dynamics Corp., 222 Conn. 62, 67, 607 A.2d 431 (1992) (“[w]e have also stated that [w]e are mindful of the principles underlying Connecticut practice in [workers’] compensation cases: that the legislation is remedial in nature . . . and that it should be broadly construed to accomplish its humanitarian purpose” [citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted]); Massolini v. Driscoll, 114 Conn. 546, 553, 159 A. 480 (1932) (“[t]he [a]ct is to be construed with sufficient liberality to carry into effect the beneficent puipose contemplated in.that legislation, and not to defeat that purpose by narrow and technical definition”).
The logic of the majority, however, eludes me. The majority stresses that “the workers’ compensation system in Connecticut is derived exclusively from statute” and, therefore, the court is unable “to craft a limitation period for repetitive trauma claims . . . .” Having said this, the majority does exactly what it claims cannot be done by in fact crafting a limitation period. The problem with this crafted limitation period is that it is uncertain and it could expire before the employee has knowledge that he or she has in fact been injured by repetitive trauma. Finally, adopting the purest position of the majority, namely, that the act is exclusively statutory, would require that this court conclude that there is in fact no limitation period for repetitive trauma injuries because no time limitation is specifically provided for by statute.
It is axiomatic that the workers’ compensation law provides an employee with the exclusive remedy for his or her work-related injuries, but the majority’s result deprives the plaintiff of this remedy for his heart attack that was caused by work-related repetitive trauma. The majority rigidly applies a time limitation applicable to accidental injuries when the statute is silent with
Accordingly, I dissent.
General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-275, the statute in effect at the time of the plaintiffs iiyury, sets forth the three categories of compensable iryuries and provides in relevant part: “(8) ‘Personal ir\jury,’ or ‘injury,’ as the same is used in this chapter, shall be construed to include, in addition to accidental injury which may be definitely located as to the time when and the place where the accident occurred, an injury to an employee which is causally connected with his employment and is the direct result of repetitive trauma or repetitive acts incident to such employment, and occupational disease as herein defined. . . .”
“(11) ‘Occupational disease’ includes any disease peculiar to the occupation in which the employee was engaged and due to causes in excess of the ordinary hazards of employment as such and includes any disease due to or attributable to exposure to or contact with any radioactive material by an employee in the course of his employment. . . .” (Emphasis added.)
At the time of the plaintiffs injury, General Statutes (Rev. to 1981) § 31-294 provided in relevant part: “No proceedings for compensation under the provisions of this chapter shall be maintained unless a written notice of claim for compensation is given within one year from the date of the accident or within three years from the first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, as the case may be, which caused the personal ipjuiy, provided, if death has resulted within two years from the date of the accident or first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease, a dependent or dependents, or the legal representative of the deceased employee, may make claim for compensation within such two-year period or within one year from the date of death, whichever is later. Such notice may be given to the employer or the commissioner .... For the purposes of this section, ‘manifestation of a symptom’ means its manifestation to the employee claiming compensation, or to some other person standing in such relation to him that the knowledge of such a person would be imputed to him, in such manner as is or ought to be recognized by him as symptomatic
The present version of the statute is codified at General Statutes § 31-294c.
In 1947, when the legislature amended the statute in effect at that time to include repetitive trauma injuries as a third class of compensable ir\jury, to be added to the already existing accidental injury and occupational disease claims; Public Acts 1947, No. 191; it apparently neglected to include a time limitation for repetitive trauma claims. See footnote 7 of the majority opinion. To this day, the legislature has not corrected this statutory gap.
In addition to the named defendant, there are other defendants in this case. See footnote 2 of the majority opinion. References herein to the defendant are to Stone and Webster.
The rule in Crochiere was based upon the precedent from several cases of the review board. Crochiere v. Board of Education, supra, 227 Conn. 353-54.
In Bremner, this court held, relying on the “ ‘first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease’ ” language in the statute in effect at that time, that the statutory limitation period for an occupational disease claim does not begin to run until the employee knew or should have known
Although Frankl wrote the decisión of the review board that dismissed the plaintiffs .claim in this case as untimely, the review board’s decision did not disavow the discovery rule for repetitive trauma claims, but, rather, it improperly concluded, as a matter of law, that all heart attacks are caused by an accidental injury and not by repetitive trauma. I do not dispute that under the facts of any given case a heart attack could be caused by an accidental injury, but it depends on the facts of the case and it is for the commissioner to make those findings of fact. The commissioner in this case determined that the plaintiffs heart attack was caused by repetitive trauma. See part I of this dissent.
The majority cites to Gavigan v. Visiting Nurses Assn., 125 Conn. 290, 292, 4 A.2d 923 (1939), for the proposition that “our precedent explicitly holds that, given the absence of [tolling] language [in § 31-294], the limitations period for a claim based upon accidental injury is not tolled simply because the claimant is unaware that he or she has suffered a compensable injury.” This precedent, however, is binding only with respect to an accidental injury, as occurred in that case, and does not speak to the elusive and complex nature of repetitive trauma injuries, a category of injury more similar to occupational diseases. Indeed, repetitive trauma claims were not statutorily recognized until 1947. See Public Acts 1947, No. 191.
At that time, the limitation period for occupational disease claims was codified at General Statutes (1958 Rev.) § 31-168, which provides in relevant part that such claims had to be brought “within one year from . . . the first manifestation of a symptom of the occupational disease . . . provided no claim . . . shall be made by an employee or his dependents . . . except while the employee is still in such employ, or within five years after his leaving such employ. . . .”