302 A.2d 127 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1972
This is an appeal by Barbara A. Dondero, plaintiff-claimant-employee, from a decision of the unemployment commissioner denying her benefits under the Unemployment Compensation Act. Originally, the plaintiff was awarded benefits by the defendant administrator. The defendant-employer, Bridgeport Hospital, was notified of this award on March 4, 1971, but did not appeal the award until December 22, 1971, nine months and eighteen days later. That appeal was heard by the unemployment commissioner at Bridgeport on April 13, 1972. By finding and decision dated April 19, 1972, the commissioner reversed the administrator and denied the plaintiff benefits. The plaintiff has appealed from that decision. It would appear that the plaintiff was represented by counsel for the first time in this court.
If the answer to this question is "No," and only in that event, then a second question would arise for determination. That question would be whether the decision of the commissioner on the facts found by him was illegal, arbitrary, or in abuse of discretion.
In the view taken by the court, the first and basic question presented should be, and is, answered in the affirmative. Accordingly, this excludes the necessity of an answer to the second question. *107
It has been repeatedly held that the right to appeal exists solely by statute and that statutes circumscribe and govern the appeals which are taken pursuant to them. The following cases, among others, support this proposition. McCoy v. Raucci,
Under the provisions of §
"[J]urisdiction over the subject matter of a proceeding cannot be conferred by consent or waiver."Long v. Zoning Commission, supra, 252, citingMarcil v. A. H. Merriman Sons, Inc.,
Accordingly, the decision of the administrator, having become final without a timely appeal having been taken therefrom, must stand. The appeal of the plaintiff-claimant-employee is sustained, and the matter remanded to the commissioner to enter a